From: li@Data-IO.COM (Phyllis Rostykus)
Subject: Dark Angle part 1 of 4 (repost)
Organization: Data I/O Corporation
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 18:54:12 GMT

Sorry to repost.  Eaiser than summing-up, though I just recently realized
that part one wasn't really the end of the story... Christmas brought part
2 and part 3 is half-way done.  Part 4 is going to be the end of this
tale of one of Crystal's angels...

Phyllis
--


	Julio was crying.  Not an unusual thing for the 17-year-old 
hustler on the edges of the Seattle Sprawl, especially out here on
Capitol Hill.  This time, however, he was crying blood.  Blood flowed
around pink bone showing through red muscle, dripped from where they had
pierced him carefully with a double edged knife, beaded on patterns on his
brown skin, trickled from a latticework of cuts, and ran from staked eyes
like tears.

	Independents were discouraged from working Broadway.  Especially a 
three-notched indie who had an expensive specialty.  Bacchus and his gang
of Wild Women were showing Julio just how much they were discouraged.  It
was brutal, not terribly efficient, but complete.  Even if Julio had
somehow scraped up enough for a medtract, he would never work again except
as a freak.  If he hadn't, well, the vids would plaster such an artistic
rendering on every vidset in the area, cheap enforcement advertising.

	Julio's knotted and still writhing body was tossed to the
sidewalk, still trying to scream.  One of Bacchus' purple and green
twisted collars tightened implaccably, his breathing worked the tiny
rachet in the collar.  The body twisted, leaped, and touched a white
stretch Rolls limo, leaving a red smear on the shining finish.
Semi-autofires nudged their ugly snouts out of the side slits.  The
Baccharites scrambled away, yelling; but the steel mouths didn't bark.
They kept going.  He was no more fun, anyway.

	"No Immediate Threat" flashed on the console inside the car.
The limo's external security cautions floated in bright holographic neon
around the threatened car.  The ghost lights caught at the mangled silver
hoop in Julio's left earlobe and gleamed off his tears of blood.

	The plates on the limo read 'IDIE4U'.

			*	*	*	*

	Julio wandered naked on the grey shore.  The layered iron sky the
same color as the stones that clattered and rattled with every similarly
colored wave.  He felt lost, confused, all that pain had at least been a
handle to hold onto, something familiar in his life.  He didn't know if he
should be crying or screaming, running or falling down, so he just walked,
lost on the shore for what felt like a very long time.

	"Hello." said a warm female voice behind him.

	Julio whirled and fell back into a crouch that expected blows.
He looked into two mismatched eyes.  One was blue, the other yellow.  They
shone from a cat the size of a scooter.  The animal was the color of
fire, all warm reds and golds, and muscles rippled smoothly under the
incredible fur as it paced before him.  Julio swallowed a lump of longing
to touch the creature and backed up another step.  Better to be safe.  He
said nothing.

	The cat watched him as it wove back and forth, back and forth.
Julio saw the glint of a white collar in the fur around its neck.  He
couldn't tell what kind of expression she had on her face, if any, and
didn't know what to do.  Finally she sat down opposite him.

	"Do you know why I'm here?" she said, not unkindly.

	Julio only looked at her with large eyes.

	She laughed a purring laugh that sent shivers through Julio and
almost made him want to cry again because it was so comforting and warm
that she must want something terrible of him.  "You have no idea, do you?"
she said musingly, her head tilted to one side.

	He stayed silent, watching.

	She got up in one fluid movement and pushed at him with her
startlingly warm and soft body.  The fur flowed and smoothed over his
naked body and aroused him embarrassingly.  She turned her flat head and
her rough, huge, sandpaper tongue stroked him on the belly.  Her teeth
flashed white and snake-wicked sharp.

	"Tell me, little man, did you die for my Mistress's sake?"

	He could only see the blue eye watching him sidelong as she rubbed
her body against his.  For a second he wondered what this beast would call
a Mistress in such fond tones.  Then realization of what she said hit him
like a blow, "No! NOT DEAD!"  He screamed his first words at the iron
sky.  Even as he ripped them from his sore throat he knew he lied.  The
knowledge brought him to his knees.

	"Yes you are." said the not unkind voice.  "I just need to know if
you died for my Mistress."

	Thoughts scrambled like a rat horde taking out a shelter.  "Yes."
he said to the rocks, not exactly sure what he had answered.  All he knew
was that if he said no she wouldn't be interested in him anymore, but yes
could do almost anything.  He wasn't even sure if he really wanted to
leave the peace of this shore.  He did know he didn't want to be lost
anymore.

	"Oh, so sure, are you, little man?"

	He looked up into the mismatched eyes, easy anger blooming at her
tone. "Yes." He was shivering in the wind off the slate grey lake.

	"Then another question, for you, the second of three.  This one I
shall explain in more detail.  Will you live for my Mistress?  If you say
no, I will leave you to your peace here, to whatever it is that you will go
on to, if you go on.  If you say yes..."

	"Yes."

	"No." Firm as De Piste had been firm, "You must understand what it 
means..."

	He stood up to face this.  "Slotted that disk, sis.  Yes 
double-equal she be me Mistress.  On-again, off-again, under her thumb.  
Hai?"

	A disconcerted silence fell as he could hear her trying to work out
what he had said.  "Hai.  I see you understand.  I'm sorry, but I need you
to answer it one more time, now that *I* understand that you understand.
Will you live for my Mistress?"

	"Yes.  I will."  The older words felt odd on his tongue, full of
the weight of old ritual.

	She whirled, more graceful than the fire her color emulated.  He 
felt the softness of her fur under his hands even as her claws slashed
open his body with a rake of blazing pain and her weight smashed him back
into the cold jagged fire of the rocks.  He smelled the perfume of her hot
breath and the caress of her sandpaper tongue just before her white teeth
and jaws crushed and tore the scream out of his throat.

	And all he could think of as the pain melted the blood and sight from
him again was that at least she had been beautiful.

			*	*	*	*

	Julio awoke abruptly, feeling as if he had all the energy in the
world.  It vaguely puzzled him that he also felt as if he had no body.  He
tried to open his eyes and couldn't, something seemed to be holding his
eyes closed.  He tried to feel for what it was, but he didn't seem to have
hands, so he tried harder to open them and felt something ripping.  He
flashed to the feel of the spikes going into his eyes and he screamed.
Or tried to.  All he heard was an obscenely gurgling croak.

	"Shhh... oh, shush, little man." said that voice that had been in
his dreams, but tired, oh, so tired.  It was thin and reedy with
tiredness, but it was the same amazingly warm voice.  There was a ghost of
that purring laugh.  "Shush, you're safe now, little one."  He felt a
shivering hand touch his skin.  It was a strange touch, as if there were
holes in his skin, areas where he could not feel her cool, soft hands.
There were other hands gentle in his hair.  The sob pushed its way out of
his chest and he relaxed.  "Good... good..." she soothed, but he could
hear how much it cost her to say it.

	He trembled for the trembling in her voice.  A jumble of confusion,
grudging gratefulness, and pity poured through him to know that she stayed
to sooth him even in her obvious exhaustion.  Julio felt pressure at his
throat, a not-touch on a numb spot.  He cried out and, even as he heard
that awful gurgle again, he heard a speaker cry out as he wished to.  Then
the speaker said, "Hey!" just as he wanted to.

	"Good.  A quick study."  This other voice was crisp, cool, a 
woman's voice, pitched slightly higher than the other, sharper.  "Sara,
lie down.  Now."  There was a hard edge in the tone.  "You hover over him
anymore, you'll just end up falling on him."

	"What's wrong with that?" teased the weak voice.

	That far away speaker said at the same time, "Sara?"

	The warm voice laughed from a little further away, a little further
down, "Yes and no, little man.  I am more commonly known as Saraquael."

	The speaker then said, "Mistress?"

	Silence, terrifying silence. 

	"Yes, boy," said the voice finally, but as cool as ice, "I will 
be your Mistress, but you must answer the last of three questions."

	He remainded silent, listening.

	"Will you give all that you are to me?"

	"Who do be you?"

	"Huh?" The phrase was startled out of the woman with the warm voice. 

	Julio tried again, flashlife bar, whitelife simple, "Who you?"

	An amazed laugh from hard voice, "Well, that'll teach me to be so
vain as to think that everyone who answers the first two questions knows
who they are pledging themselves to."

	"Streetlife, Lady.  No yen, no ken." The voice that said that was
should have been the voice of the earth, so low it rumbled.  Yet there was
a crytalline clarity to its pronunciation, like the coldness of a stream
trapped beneath the darkness. "You don't do vid."

	Julio tensed, there weren't many stars known for no-vid, and only
one that dealt with death in this corner of the world.  The far away
speaker whispered, "White Crystal."  White rage and ice cold longing
washed through him, stirring up his confusion even more.

	A finger traced a maddening on-again off-again trail down the
edge of his jaw.  "So, boy, you have heard of me."

	"Julio.  Not boy."  He said it flatly. 

	"Not for long, if you agree."  The hard voice was thoughtful. For a
wild moment Julio wondered if she could read his mind.  She went on along
her original track.  "The questions was, will you give all that you are
over to me? If you say no, I'll only hold you to the second answer. You
will die when I ask you to and you will live for as long as I wish to keep
you alive.  I will have the docs make you functional again, give you eyes,
get your limbs healed whole, and put you back out on the street.  You will
be free of me and mine, except if I call for your life.  You'll probably
be boring enough for me to just let you die whenever you happen to."
Julio's nostrils flared at the last remark.

	"If you say yes..." the hard voice paused and started pacing to the
click of heels on hardness, "If you say yes, I will strip your name from
you, I will remake your body anyway I please, I will take you and own you
and use you for whatever I wish."

	"Think long and hard about it, Julio.  If you say yes, I will take
your life as my plaything.  You will live every moment at my order and for
my desire." There was a pause, "I may kill you simply for my own
pleasure."

	"Reran flatline to whitenoise."  The faraway speaker spoke even as 
Julio shivered.  Better brave face than shit faced, he thought.

	A hard laugh from the hard voice.  "So you've played the game 'til 
it bored you?  What happened to your guardian angel tonight?"

	Julio tried to think of something flippant to say, but the memory
of those spikes going into his eyes gagged him as nothing else could.

	The warm voice flickered as it spoke, "You... sent me, Mistress.
Nothing's coincidence."

	A silence balanced in the air and was snapped by the impatience
in that hard voice, "What is your answer, Julio?"

	For a long moment Julio thought about that iron shore and the lap
of waves upon the empty beach, the wild hot kiss of the firecat's mouth
on his throat.  He thought about the streets and the Bacchians and about
how tired he had been, how little he had looked forward to.

	"Yes." said the speaker.  Words from a half-remembered senstim 
came back to him.  The speaker said "All that I am, all that I ever will
be, and all that I might be are yours to do with, as you wish."  The old
words felt like they were weighted with his heart.

	"Thank you." she said and he was surprised by her tone.

	Still wondering why the infamously ice-hard White Crystal
sounded like she was crying, Julio slipped away into an exhausted sleep.

			*	*	*	*

	Julio ran from the big cat, only to have it catch him and light him
on fire.  He was burning.  He could feel his hair crinking and crisping,
his skin crackling in the heat.  He was spread eagle in a web of fire,
completely unable to move his arms or legs.  He tried to scream, but
nothing would come out.  Nothing at all.  That is until a snake the color
of remorse pulled itself out of his mouth, hauled itself out, each inch of
its smooth, soft, scaled skin slimed with his blood.  Julio struggled
wildly against the bonds that held him helpless, but all his limbs were
heavy, stiff.  The snake swayed before him with blind, solid white eyes,
the blood streaked hood spread wide and wider yet.  It danced before him,
hissing softly, its tongue tasting the air.

	When the needle fangs struck him the snake screamed with his voice.

	Julio woke up with a start.  His heart was pounding, his breath 
coming fast and hard, and each breath hurt.  He held onto the pain as if
it were salvation. He was sweating and firmly restrained in casts, a
blindfold, and a soft gag against his tongue.  He struggled against the
bonds and pain blazed in all his straining muscles.   The speaker cried out.

	He stopped struggling.  The speaker said with all the anger he 
could muster, "Hoi!  Any fuckin' body flash this trip?"

	Laughter greeted his foray, just as he feared. "Hoi chummer, 
indeed, my little cock." said the hard voice.

	"Ain't my chummer, girlie." said the speaker.

	"I am wounded!" exclaimed the amused voice in a mock theatrical
manner. "After having my crew pull the boy-child out from the clutches of
death itself, and after he consented to give me himself, he won't even
call me chummer!"

	Julio wished the speaker could sigh.  It did, but not with the
authority he wanted it to.  He settled for a disgusted "Slot that shit."
He was amazed to find that he felt gratified to hear her laugh.

	"You want to hear what comes next?"

	"Hai, Crystalsama."

	"So you have some manners after all..." the sharp laughter made his
face flush warm.  "Well, I need preference input from you before we do the
reconstruction.  The docs have gotten you to a point stable enough to do
the stuff, and there hasn't been enough time for too much scar tissue to
be solidly established.  So it should be easy to remove most of the
scars.  We'll probably put you in a vat for replacement of muscles,
throat, kidney, voice box, colon, nerve, eye..."

	He didn't realize why she stopped, until he heard the keening 
that came from the speaker.  This time there wasn't the on-again off-again
feeling, it was worse, he could feel all the healing scabs and scars under
her hands, all the places where his skin had knotted and gnarled.  He
couldn't even cry with his eyes the way they were.  His body didn't know
that and it convulsed on the bed as it tried to grieve for all that had
been taken.  Dry, racking sobs through a half crushed throat and not even
the ghost of tears could make his ruined eyes cry.

	He felt her climb into his bed behind him, her arms careful but 
strong against his shoulders as she worked her way in behind him.  She
cradelled his upper body with hers and his body sobbed all the harder.
"Ahh... ahh..." she said softly "Poor fledgeling Angel wrapped in your
funeral shroud, your wings still only buds, and your voice muted by your
fresh escape from mortality." The harsh sobs softened slowly and she held
him close.  It hurt, but he was used to those near him hurting him, and it
gave him a solid hold on his body's existance.  She gave him a gentle kiss
on his cheek.  He shivered and wondered what the price would be for the
touch of gentleness; but it felt so good to be held.

	Against his inclinations, Julio slowly found himself relaxing into
her body.  He turned his face into her throat.  Julio felt the flesh of
his face catching, scraping against her, the small sounds of the damage he
did to the satin of her shirt.  Some of the scabs pulled away, accents of
sharp, hot hurt against the background ache, but he didn't stop.  She
didn't flinch, didn't draw away from his self-inflicted damage.  She only
held him closer, kissed him on his face as he felt his blood stain her
satin shirt and soft skin.  He nuzzled his blind face against her throat
and felt the soft skin of her throat and even under her chin catch on his
scabs, breaking a few more away.  The pads across his eyes felt strange
against the empty sockets.

	A soft, wet warmth licked at one of his opened wounds.  His body
twitched in startlement at the touch of her tongue, then stilled.  The
metallic acid trickle against his nerves caused him to shiver and the
speaker moaned as faintly as a building bowing to the wind.  She sighed
next to his ear and he found that he ached with an emotion he could not
name; but it was no longer grief.

	For a long, long moment, she just held him.
	
	Julio fell asleep for a while and woke to find her still there.
He stirred a little and she shifted her hold a little.  He sighed a
broken sigh.  He wanted to keep his scars, he wanted to remember this,
wanted to always remember being this broken, and to take that memory with
him when he went to kill Bacchus and his gang.  But how to ask for that?
She had said that she was going to remake him, would his wishes have any
affect?  Which would be the best way to ask?  Finally, he found his voice
again, but his body shook even as the speaker spoke flatly, "Crystalsama,
may... may your... humble slave...  Julio keep his scars?"

	"Kick this drek!  What in hell happened to my razor-slick flashboy?
Humble, fucking slave, where'n hell you slot this shit, boyo?!"  Terror
overwhelmed him at her angry tone and it took a couple of seconds before
it sank in that she wasn't saying no.  That her angry tone had been as mock
playful as her earlier Hoi.

	"Wha... What?"  He was furious, shaking again.  Knowing that she
was mocking him didn't help at all.  He had laid himself wide open for
that, but he couldn't blow it.  Couldn't let his temper get in the way of
something that meant this much to him.

	The cold tone softened, "By St. Dimas, boy, where did you learn
that?"  She kissed him again.

	"Learn what?"

	"The 'slave' shit."

	Confused at her change in subject, he struggled to remember the
training, "From those that loved your tapes and took me."  Her arms closed
hard on him, so hard he gasped and writhed in her grasp.  Then remembering,
he writhed the harder.

	"Stop that."  Her voice was so hard, he knew that he had lost.

	With that knowledge, he lashed out, there was nothing left to lose
anymore, "Askin was moot.  Crystal's only virtual.  Julio took it from VR
to RNR.  Boytoy from dayone.  Body, mind, and soul.  Whips, knives, chains
'n pains.  Made *real* cream 'n' scream."  The speaker then commenced to
scream.

	He expected a slap, a blow, a whip, something to stop that awful
sirened scream.  He expected her to try and out scream him, to shake him,
or destroy him as she had promised she would and could. 

	Instead, a single, warm droplet hit his contorted cheek.  A droplet
that burned when it struck his open wounds.  Then another.

	The scream faltered and died away as Crystal gently but surely
moved away.  He could feel the shaking of her body, hear the trembling of
her breath as she cried.  He felt satisfaction at that, proud that he had
hurt her at all, after how much she had hurt him.  But it didn't feel
good, it didn't feel nearly as good as when she had been holding him.

	Her voice was very quiet.  "I'm sorry.  I don't think this is going
to work out.  I'll have the best of replacements installed as quickly and
as well as we know how.  Then you'll be free to do as you will.  I..."
Something in Julio snapped as her voice broke, "I know that this will not
make up for what happened to your life..."

	"Please..." whispered the speaker.

	"What?" 

	"Please no."

	"I'm telling you, you're free."

	"Don't *WANT* free."

	"I don't want a slave."

	"Why questions?"

	"I want someone who chose to stay with me."

	"Why threats?"

	"So you would know what you were getting into."

	"Why me?"

	"The I die for you."

	"No... I thought I died for you?"

	Laughter, hesistant, but real, "Sorry, you died by the IDIE4U, my
car.  In my tapes..." another hesitation, "In my tapes, those that die by
my car become candidates for my Angels."

	"Angels?"

	"Like Saraquael and Michael, Rafael and Raguel.  People who are 
around me when I die."

	"You die?"

	"You've never seen one of my tapes, have you?"

	"Black Delights.  Say no more."

	She sighed and sat down on the edge of his bed and stroked his
face, careful to avoid the scabs, "There's much more to it.  I'm the one
who dies in those tapes.  The object of them has always been my own
experiences while I die, or just before.  The Angels and I do some short SM
work for my warm ups and because it pleases them and I.  I've never
called my Angels slaves.  I've never taken an unwilling Angel and I've
never, ever in my life obliderated a personality as yours sounded like it'd
suddenly been wiped." 

	"When we found you, you scared me, Julio.  You really frightened 
me."

	"You'd spook at ME?" The speaker couldn't get the amount of
incredulity that he wanted into the voice, but he doubted that he could
have gotten it into his normal voice.

	"Yes."

	"Why?!"

	A long, long silence.  "Maybe this will work."

	The speaker squawked when it hit its rails. "TELL ME."

	"I was frightened that you'd lost what made you you.  I don't want
a trembling mindless slave that asks me if it's O.K. to take a shit.  I
was so delighted with your sheer obnoxiousness, especially with Saraquael
always running off into the woods for a week-long fast or off to another
party.  Michael's wonderful in a fight and with a whip, as sensative a
listener and watcher as I've ever wanted, but he's about as talkative as a
tree."  She paused and chuckled softly, her voice changed slightly.

	"Rafe and Rage are sweet, but more sweet on each other than me.  But
when I looked at how much damage had been done to you, I... I was afraid
that some of you would be wiped, had been wiped and shaped to some other's
whim.  When you started talking that slave shit, I..." she hesitated,
sounding lost.  "It scared the shit out of me, thinking that that is what I
might end up being someday if I let the pain get past me."

	"When... when you rubbed against me, I realized that you knew pain
the way that I know it.  That the edge of it, the touch of it can excite
you as it touches me.  You accept pain in a way I've only ever known in
myself.  Or that's what I thought until I saw your fake writhing after
that hold.  It was like catching someone in a fake orgasm, I couldn't know
if the earlier ones really pleasured you or if you were only trying to
act in the way you thought would please me.  Were you faking?"

	The words caught in his throat.  Pleasure in pain?  Never.  Pain
hurts, that's all.  He could accept it when he was made to or when there
was money on the line, but like it?  While he was still thinking about it,
she leaned over and the wet warmth of her tongue stroked to life that
aching trickle of metallic sensation.  His breath caught, his aching
muscles tensioned, and that faint moan sounded again through the speaker.  
She stopped, the speaker stopped.

	Her voice was intent, "No, I guess you weren't."

	He was trembling, "No.  It *hurts*, I don't like to get hurt. I'm
not a freak.  I only did it for the money.  They'd pay me ten Kay for one
night on a pillory.   Buko bucks and since I could take it, I did."

	"Why did you rub your face against me?"

	"Trash the silk."

	"Really?"

	"Boo."

	"And when I wasn't scared?  What did you feel?"

	A long silence.  Julio wanted her to go away, wanted to go to
sleep, to get away from her and her uncomfortable questions.

	"Tell me, please.  Or at least tell yourself."

	"I... I don't know..."  

	"I love you."  That one surprised him and hurt more than he thought
it could.

	"Liar."

	"Liar." 

	In unison, "Pants on Fire!!"  They both cracked up.

	It hurt to laugh, but it felt good too.  At that thought Julio
quieted.  "I... I'll slot it for a shot."  He felt terribly tired.

	"O.K. then." She stood up, "You still want to be mine?"

	"Yes, oh yes, oh Mistress of my mind and body." The phrase came
off the speaker with the cadence of a child's nursery rhyme.  He was
pleased with that.

	"Fuck you."  The playful hardness was good to hear again.

	"I certainly hope so."

	"Be careful of what you wish for..."

	"I've always wanted blue eyes..."

	"... you may get what you ask for."

	"... so I don't *look* like I'm fulla shit."

	A long pause, "I think I'm going to be sorry about this."

	"Oh."  

	"Maybe not..."

	Then he remembered, "Mistress..." at the humph, he quickly changed
his tone. "Lady..." another humph, "Crystal?", silence, "Could..." he
caught himself tensing again, "could I please keep the scars?"

	"Keep them?  Why?"

	"I... I don't want to be just a pretty boy anymore."

	A long silence, Julio wished he could just curl up with his tiredness
and not have to fight for what he wanted so hard.

	Something in Crystal's voice brought an ache to his throat, "No... 
you're no longer a boy.  Keep the scars.  It would please me to have my
Angel Gabriel so marked."

	"Gabriel?"

	"You think it fits?"

	"I... I don't know.  What was Gabriel?"

	"An Angel, whose name means `God is my strength'."

	"God's A Soft.  Played 5 straight."

	"You would be my angel, not God's."

	"Oh."

	"He's also the angel of vengeance and death."

	The smile hurt, splitting skin, "No shit."

	"No shit."

	Gabriel was smiling still when he fell asleep.

----------------


-- 
Phyllis Rostykus    | "... and how you feel can make it real  | - _US_
aka Liralen Li      | Real as anything you've seen            |   Peter
li@Data-IO.com      | Get a life with this dreamer's dream."  |   Gabriel