Page 1 of Light Leech

Chapter one

Couples Therapy

Naoma screamed.

I tried the door once before burning my Bite reserve and busting the lock. It might have been unlocked and the struggle my human error, but I was not willing to take the risk.

If my companionship was a danger to her, I had to repay the reciprocal tenfold.

Any hope of a reprieve following our time in Arabasia was a delusion. The few days we had since arriving back in the Republic were enough of a grace period as we returned to undeserved torture.

Perhaps it was deserved. We were vile beings adjacent to cannibals, but that did not include Naoma. She should have been exempt. Recalling her reveal of the serpent-woman-spirit that followed her, perhaps she wasn’t exempt. Still, she didn’t eat teeth. Whatever was happening to her was undeserved as far as I was concerned.

I burst into the therapeutic chamber. Strapped down to a chair, Naoma faced me. I didn’t have to ask if restraint was part of her consent for treatment. There shouldn’t have been a thorough consent in the first place. She had chosen the lowest form of therapy, despite the modern innovations that allow therapists to look into their patient’s cognitive makeup. She had asked for a simple conversation to preface a potential memory recall treatment if she felt like the therapist was trustworthy. Based on my observations thus far, this was yet another question that need not be asked.

She opened her mouth, but any words were cut off as the thing that had been her therapist injected metallic tentacles into the back of her head. The skin that had been the man’s flesh split and flayed out like a flower for metallic probes that were far too reminiscent of cuttlefish tentacles for comfort.

“Halt,” the therapist said. His hands–still human in appearance–held Naoma’s shoulders while the tentacles continued their work. Had they not been toying with one of the most fragile components of the human body, I would have pounced on him and torn him into flesh and metal fragments.

Naoma’s frightened eyes rolled back into her skull.

It took everything for me to choose logic over rage and not attack the therapist.

“Good,” he said.

“What do you want?”

“You to leave. Let me do my work.”

“Who do you work for? Who are you selling her data to?”

“Come on, Petya. You’re not that naive.”

Zhu what the zeg is going on?

The ghost swine did not answer, though I felt his presence near.

It took every ounce of will for me to not scream at him. One misstep could end her. “Please. Let her go, and we’ll talk.”

“Would you like to offer yourself in her place?”

I hesitated. Before I could decide, Naoma’s eyes glowed white. The light was not from her sclera, but from something deep within. Not a machine, but a spirit. Her brows tensed and her mouth turned from its agape and vulnerable shape to an angered cry.

The therapist shrieked, his voice a mixture of man and mechanism.

Naoma cried out, cathartic rage expelling the therapist from her head as if she was too hot to touch.

She looked at me, the glow fading from her eyes, then she ran to my side.

I had questions aplenty but could not sit to discuss them while the therapist stared at me. He had collected himself, though not without the occasional twitch. His mouth had not reformed and the metallic tentacles moved, hungry for another feeding.

My Bite reserve was low. As far as I could tell, his flayed mouth possessed no real teeth.

He did not speak nor did he move from his hunched stance.

I spared Naoma a glance, relieved to see that she stood at my side but feared what that thing had done to her.

My focus on her wavered. It was not that I wanted to look at the horrific therapist, but I found myself longing for his gaze. It was not a desire birthed from defense or my survival instincts, but a genuine need to meet his eyes. To watch those metallic tentacles and understand their dance.