Forgiven
By: Ricochet

"It's hard to believe they're tearing down this place." Said Victoria Hillard. Her sister Katherine and the other Zeo Rangers had come back to Australia for a vacation. Billy looked at the tall lone clock tower. Just then, a vision of a beautiful young brunette woman in a white gown falling from the tower he was . He gasped as if he had been kicked in the gut.

"Billy, what's wrong?" asked Tanya Sloan, noticing her friend's shocked expression.

"I don't know." He put his hand on his chest and put his other hand on a tree, breathing rather hard. "I just…" he trailed off as he looked up at the tower. "Umm, nothing. Just a little dizzy spell." He gave them a reassuring smile.

"Come on, guys." Said Victoria. "We've gotta go." As they turned to leave, Billy turned and looked at the tower, and once again got the vision.

"Billy, you coming, man?" asked Adam.

"Oh, yeah." He walked away from the huge church reluctantly.

***************************************************************************

"Did you notice anything odd about Billy today?" asked Rocky.

"Hmmm?" replied Victoria. She was staring at Billy with a dreamy look in her eyes. Billy took no notice, however. He was pacing around the hotel room, every now and then stopping to stare in the direction of the church.

"Victoria…" a disappointed face spread across Rocky's face. He had liked Victoria for as long as he could remember knowing her. He also knew Billy only thought of her as a younger sister. Victoria looked at Billy as though he were some superstar heartthrob. The pretty raven-haired girl finally managed to redirect her attention to Rocky.

"What was that?" she asked, tossing a curl that had come loose from her ponytail over her shoulder.

"Nothing, never mind." He got up and walked into the kitchenette to help himself to some potato chips. Billy had finally settled down at the computer, then turned to Kat.

"What did you say the name of that church was?"

"The Bretly Cathedral." She said.

"Thanks." He began to type away at the computer. After about twenty minutes of hacking through classified files, he pulled out his reading glasses he sometimes needed for reading a computer document. The others were all getting in bed, but Victoria came out of her room in a blue silk nightgown. She walked into the kitchenette, once again completely unnoticed by Billy. As she poured herself a glass of red wine, she turned to Billy.

"Billy, would you some wine?" she asked. Billy looked at her, and she nearly took his breath away. She had her long corkscrew curled black hair down around her shoulders. Billy found himself almost wondering how he could have ever thought of her as a little sister. She was still wearing her makeup and the moonlight made her even more beautiful.

"Umm, okay." He forced himself to look back at the screen, and he nearly had a heart attack. Right in front of him was a picture of the girl he had seen falling from the tower in his vision, and she looked exactly like Victoria. He glanced over at where she was pouring him a glass of wine. As she walked over towards him, he quickly punched in the address for his e-mail account. She handed him his glass.

"Aren't you hot in that leather jacket?" she asked. She pulled it off his shoulders, letting her hands run luxuriously over his strong arms as she did so.

As she walked over to the closet, Billy reverted back to the article. And what he read shocked him and scared him down to his bones. This lookalike was accused of being a witch, and of stealing men's souls and occasionally turning them to slaves, but only the men whom had something to offer her. On most occasions, it was good looks or intelligence, and Billy recalled that she had had a huge crush on him for a long time. Everyone thought the witch was dead when an understandably bitter wife had shoved her from a church bell tower. Once again, he went back to his e-mail, thanking God that he had once taken a speed reading course. He was practically breaking out in a cold sweat as she turned his chair around so he was facing her. She pulled his reading glasses off. Dropping them on the ground, she proceeded to straddle him in the chair and kiss him.

"We shouldn't do this." Protested Billy, as she undid his shirt and ran her hands over his exposed skin. Finally, in a burst of courage, he pushed her off of him and walked over to the window. She got up and walked over to him, putting her arms around his waist from behind. He reacted by removing her hands from his waist. "I said no."

"What's the matter?" she asked. "Don't you find me attractive?"

"It's not that." He stammered as she shoved him on the couch and began to kiss his neck.

"Then what is it?" she asked, as she continued to kiss him. He stood up and walked over to the sliding door.

"It's just that we've been friends for so long, it would be to weird." He ran his hands through his hair. She walked up behind him and ripped his shirt right of his back.

"Do you think our friendship is a factor at all in this for me?" she whispered, as she ran her hands up his muscular back and over his broad shoulders, then kissed the back of his neck. She then she slid her hands around his waist, caressing his tightly-packed torso.

"I'm guessing not." He walked over to the bathroom. He tried to ignore what had just happened. "Well, I've got to be getting ready for bed. See you in the morning." He closed and locked the door behind him, and let out a sigh of relief. "What am I gonna do? I can't just go up to Katherine and say 'hey, guess what? You're sister isn't really your sister. She's an immortal demon sent to steal men's souls and turn them into slaves through…well, you know…and now she's got her eye on me. Want to go get some breakfast?' That'd go over so well."

"I see you discovered my little secret." Victoria said, stepping out from behind the closed shower curtain. Billy jumped back and slammed into the sharp edge of the bathroom counter. Grabbing his side with a cry of pain, he continued to back towards the door. Victoria's eyes were glowing red as she walked towards him. If it was possible to radiate from evil, Billy was sure she could have landed a plane. "Don't be frightened."

"Frightened?" he stammered. "Who's frightened?"

"Look, of all the ways to lose your soul, don't you think this is quite possibly the best way to do it?" she waved her hand in front of her face, changing her eyes back to their normal piercingly electric blue.

"I'd rather keep my soul until I'm of age to properly die, thank you very much." He said, as he fumbled to unlock the door. Just then, Rocky unlocked the door from the outside and walked inside. Noticing that Billy had no shirt on and Victoria was in a nightgown, he backed up.

"Am I interrupting anything?" he asked.

"No, of course not." Said Billy. "I was about to have a shower when she accidentally walked in. I wasn't naked yet, so she didn't see anything she shouldn't see." Victoria glared angrily at Rocky, then brushed past them both. Billy managed to keep his sigh of relief inside as she closed the door behind her.

"Aren't you gonna have that shower now?" asked Rocky. "Cuz I really need to go to the bathroom."

"Oh, sure, go ahead." Billy walked into the room where all the guys' beds were. Seeing that the other guys were sleeping peacefully, he sat down on his bed, and hugged his pillow. After about five minutes, Rocky came out of the bathroom. He got into bed and pulled the covers over his head. Billy slowly walked over to the bathroom. Turning on the water, he finished undressing and stepped into the shower. After about half an hour of standing in the shower letting the scathingly hot water stream over him, he gave up on waking up and grabbed his towel. Finally he got into bed with no more sign of Victoria, and it stayed that way for the rest of the night.

"Billy, wake up." Said Katherine. She gently poked at Billy's head. He rolled over and groaned.

"Alex, what is the Precambrian Shield?" he muttered. Katherine looked at up oddly.

"The Precambrian Shield?" she repeated.

"That's his Jeopardy dream." Explained Adam. "He usually has that dream when he was in harsh thinking mode pre-dream."

"Oh…" she trailed off again.

"The Precambrian Shield is a rock formation that makes up half of Canada." Said Billy, getting up and wiping the sleep from his eyes. Then he remembered what had happened before he had gone to bed. Then, he saw Victoria at the door. She looked as sweet and innocent as she ever did. "It must have been a dream." He decided. But as he got to the bathroom, however, he discovered a large welt on his side where he had hit himself on the bathroom counter. Recognition dawned on him when he realized it was not a dream. Victoria was a demon sent to steal men's souls. And he was next on her top ten list. He gulped down his fear and walked back into his room and got dressed. When he came out, he could feel Victoria's eyes burning into his back as she mentally undressed him.

All of a sudden, she had a giggling fit. She hid her eyes behind her magazine, then looked back at Billy, a coquettish smile playing up her angelic features. She tossed a curl over her shoulder and walked towards Billy.

"Stop it." Billy whispered hoarsely, as she walked by.

"Stop what?" she asked in her typical prudish way.

"Stop mentally undressing me. I can tell when you do it, because you were doing it last night." He poured milk on his cereal and took a huge mouthful of 'Just Right'.

"I hope we can do that again sometime, but just between us, you tell anyone and I will go after someone else." She smiled. "How about that, pretty boy?" she pinched his butt, and Billy proceeded to choke on his cereal. Victoria walked out of the kitchenette innocently as Adam hurried in to help his friend. Victoria lay down on the couch and settled back to reading her magazine.

"Are you okay man?" asked Adam, while pounding his friend on the back.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He looked past Adam at Victoria, who gave him an inculpable smile. "Just fine." He walked into his room and came out with his laptop and plugged it into the Internet outlet. He looked up all of the things he could find on demons that stole men's souls through intercourse, and he found a demon called Narra. She was a beautiful raven-haired beauty who would come every thousand years to a different place on earth and become part of a family. She would live for about a lifespan of eighty-five, unless she became sick of her life and then she would start all over again, not caring whom she would hurt when she left. The victimized man would seem as though he had died of a previously undetected heart ulcer. Billy looked at her with fear in his eyes. She would take anywhere from ten to twenty men per year, and according to his calculations, she would be pretty hungry for a soul right about now. As he read on, he finally found a page on how to kill Narra. She would have to be killed during intercourse by a slit of the throat by a diamond edged blade. "So that's it then. I have to sleep with her in order to kill her. Of course, I can't just say 'oh, I changed my mind'. I need some tact." As he stroked his chin, Kat announced her plans for the day.

"Hey everyone, how about we do a little shopping down town?" she said. Billy managed to hide his smile when he remembered that Tommy had bought a knife to add to his collection. A diamond edged knife. Billy looked at the others.

"I think I'll stay here, I'm kind of tired." He got up and walked into the bedroom, and immediately began to hunt for the knife. "Finally." He thought. He walked over to his bed and stuck the knife under his mattress. Then he headed from the living room.

"I think I'll stay behind as well, maybe catch up with you later." Said Victoria.

"Alright." Said Kat. "But you're missing out on a lot." As soon as they were out of the room, Victoria walked in to where Billy was lying shirtless on his bed. Taking in his muscular form, she smiled.

"I think I'll add you to my permanent collection. Kat, YOU'RE the one missing out." She walked over to his bedside and lay down next to him. When she realized that under the sheets he was only wearing his boxers, she smiled again. "Less to take off…perfect." Billy looked at her.

"Okay, time to find out if those drama lessons were worth the $49.95 I paid for them." He tried to sit up, but she pushed him back down.

"Uh ah ah." She slid under the covers with him. "No running away this time." She kissed him hard. Finally the whole kinky thing was underway.

(I won't go into detail about this little task because frankly I'm not that sort of person.)

"Well," thought Billy, "it's now or never." He reached under the mattress as inconspicuously as he could and slid out the dagger. Slowly curling his hand around her back, he rolled over and held the dagger right at her throat.

"So, you found out another of my secrets." She smiled.

"No kidding, Narra." With a fleeting grin, he slashed open her throat. All of a sudden, he was thrown backward right into the wall. As he watched, she began to glow white. Then, white beams of light shot out of her eyes and, when she opened it to scream, her mouth. Then she turned into a crow and flew out of the window.

'This is not over!' echoed through the room as the crow flew away. Billy stood up and walked over to the dresser. Then, as an afterthought, he went to his laptop that was still plugged into the Internet. He reopened the bookmark he had to the site where he had gotten his information. Smiling, he finished reading the article.

"When Narra is killed, she will turn into a crow, and a flesh counterpart will take the place of whomever's life she was living. The person will have all the memories, feelings and abilities that she supposedly had before. She also has no memory of what Narra did during her life."

Billy stood up and walked out into the living room to find Victoria lying on the couch reading a magazine, her crush on Billy very much still intact. With a shy smile spreading across her face, she moved her legs off of the couch.

"Billy, would you like to come and sit with me?" she asked.

"Sure." He said. Then, reaching over behind her head, he pulled the hair elastic out of her hair, letting her corkscrew curls tumble around her shoulders. When she looked at him curiously, he just smiled. "I've always thought it would look better down."

THE END

Rule

Home