After the Calling

Warnings: Sexual themes, suggestive tones, prostitution, drug-related themes, and profanity.

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Salem took a deep breath and tried to control her shaking fingers. She could feel the slow tremors and aches of withdrawal beginning a slow swirl in the pit of her stomach. She was falling off her high and falling hard. She needed another hit. If she went much longer without one, that slow swirl in her gut would become a violent churning that would tear through her muscles and her mind with painful abandon. The mere thought of withdrawal pulled her to her feet. If she was going to get a rock, she needed cash.

“One job,” she said to herself, shaking out her twitchy limbs. “One job, that’s all I need.” One job would get her just enough cash to get something into her veins. Or up her nose. Or in her lungs. Anything. She just had to be able to function. She gripped the pole of a lamp post to steady herself, the cold of the metal popping against her drug-addled nervous system.

She walked into the light of the street lamp so that she was visible from the road. She was in a bad spot tonight. Not many cars drove down this way, and the ones that did usually held johns that were looking for more problems than they were worth. Not to mention that the cops knew this street, and kept a look out for lonely tricks to throw into a jail cell.

But she was in no state to fight with the other prostitutes in the area for one of the prime corners further downtown. And she was one of the few that didn’t have a pimp. So if one of the girls decided to pull a blade on her, there would be no one around to back her up. This would have to do.

She popped out a hip seductively as a car slowed in front of her, but whoever was behind the wheel was either spooked or not interested, as they sped off when she moved toward the passenger side window.

“You couldn’t handle this shit no way!” she yelled after the car.

“I’m sure that’s true for most people,” a voice behind her startled Salem off the curb.

She turned to see a tall suited man leaning casually on a lamp post. He was wearing shaded glasses in the middle of the night, but outside of that he looked like a catch. Well-off. She’d definitely overcharge him.

“Are you a cop?”

“If I was,” he replied, “would I tell you?”

“I guess not. Where’s your car, baby?” she purred at him.

But he didn’t answer, appearing to be studying her. She pushed out her chest a bit for his benefit.

“100 for an hour, 150 if you want it kinky.” She started to walk towards him, but something about his demeanor made her stop. Something was wrong here.

As the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, she looked over her shoulder to see two other men crossing the street, walking purposefully in her direction.

“Oh, this is some bullshit,” she breathed. “You boys don’t have anything better to do tonight than gang up on little ol’ me?” She tried to speak lightly while she felt around in the folds of her skimpy garment for her boxcutter, but her voice quivered, revealing her anxiety.

Fuck, she thought, realizing that she had left her blade somewhere. She put on a brave face. “I think you freaks need to go waste your time somewhere else.”

“But Salem, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

Salem nearly fell over when she felt someone circle behind her and grip her arm. She jerked around to see a silver-haired woman staring at her with disquieting scrutiny, eyes hungry and impassioned. It was as if she had appeared from out of nowhere.

“How do you know my name,” Salem let go of a shocked whisper, stumbling backward against the brick wall behind her. Her frayed nerves were barely registering.

“Mmmmm,” the woman hummed. “I know a lot of things about you. How do you do it? How do you talk yourself under the sweaty, stench-ridden folds of the pathetic? Into the arms of those who are so beneath you?” The woman made no overt movements, but her eyes travelled slowly up and down Salem’s frame, as if searching. “How you’ve desecrated yourself, Salem. And for such a worthless addiction.”

The woman moved closer, imprisoning Salem against the wall, not just with fear, but with sheer presence.

“I told you boys,” the woman said to the men who had crowded around her. “I told you I’d find her. No one ever has faith in me.”

“It’s like staring into concrete,” one of the men said, disbelievingly. “I can’t sense a thing from her.”

“She’s only a latent,” another said, anger in his voice. “This is impossible. There’s another explanation.”

“No, Nyxon, love,” the woman whispered. “She’s real. She’s beautiful.”

“Look,” Salem said, pressing her back up against the coarse bricks. “Whatever you’re looking for, I don’t have it.”

The woman’s eyes made their way back to Salem’s face. They were sharp and unblinking. Salem shuddered in their frigid glare, but it could have been her body’s continuing slide into withdrawal.

“Actually,” the woman said slowly, “I think you have exactly what I’m looking for. I have been looking for you for longer you know. You have no idea how special you are.” She reached out and touched Salem’s cheek. “Salem, I’m here to save you from this. From all of this,” she said. “You’ll come with me, and you won’t ever want for anything ever again.”

Nothing about her statement gave Salem a choice. “Who – who the fuck are you?” Salem murmured, fear finally overtaking all thought.

She smiled. “Salem, I am the question. And you? You are the answer.”

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Salem is latent, meaning she has no sense of her own aura or the aura of others and therefore cannot manipulate it as a psychic would be able to. However, she does have innate psychic ability that she cannot control.

Salem has an inborn psychic barrier around her psyche rendering her aura impenetrable, invisible, and unable to be influenced by psychics.