Stonebreaker

I am her opposite. I am a chameleon. I change my spots wherever and whenever I have to. It’s a survival thing, and I’m good at it. I’d have been actor if I were better looking.

Some things I can’t change. I stand out just a little in any group, never quite a member. I’m like water, flowing into any space available, and on down the easiest path. Somehow I’ve run a course back to her.

She’s an alabaster statue, a perfect Greek goddess of immortal myth standing on a golden pedestal. She’s cold, she’s remote, she’s too hard to bend, too strong to break. I could touch her cool face, kiss her cold lips, but I would never be strong enough to move her.

There she stands, ivory smile as unflickering as if she were truly carved from stone. She doesn’t move, because they all come to her. They dance around her, their small talk sounding like a pagan chant, in a primitive dance of suits and cocktail dresses, priests and priestesses, praying to their idol. How they worship her! Now, she’s small time religion, but soon enough she’ll be for sale in every corner magazine stand. She’ll be the yardstick by which women measure their beauty.

I don’t join the dance, though I am a true believer, an Original Disciple. Glitz and glamour I hate. I like things simple, straightforward, and final. My fellows in the congregation approach me from time to time, but mostly they leave me alone. Perhaps because I’m not cool, perhaps because they know I’m a werewolf. Not the kind that sprouts fur and howls at the full moon; I carry the wolf within.

I only understand them the way a wolf understands a deer, and at some level, their own inner animal warns them there’s something on the prowl—they don’t want to come too close to me. Anyway, I understand their motives and actions better than they do. I’d have been a detective if I believed in law or order.

A good predator, I have my marks chosen. The VIP’s, the very important priests, at the center of the circle, standing proudly around the goddess, pretending people are there to see them too. One of them is gorgeous, a goddess in training. Blue eyes, red hair; two almond-shaped seas framed in flowing fire. Someday she’ll drink that cup of ambrosia and stand on a pedestal all her own. Not yet, though.

The way the goddess whispers to her VIP’s lets me know it’s time. I walk towards the statue. I am seen. I am judged unworthy. Then I am recognized. I am admitted to the circle and hugged by arms which are warm and soft, kissed on the cheek by warm lips. So easy to forget that it’s all just unfeeling stone. She smells like an angel.

“Oh, how you’ve changed!” She’s unafraid. Mortal threats are no worry to her. Maybe she even knows what she’s doing when she says, “Oh we must catch up! We’re going down the freight elevator and coming out the back. Come with us, oh please! We just have to catch up!”

Priests are a small sacrifice for publicity.

Eight of us move towards the elevator. The goddess and I talk of our lives since our last meeting. She doesn’t really care, and knows it’s all lies, anyway.
“I missed you,” I say.
“I missed you, too,” She lies. Her lies are as soft and as smooth as her skin, and they even glow the same way.
We get to elevator, we all climb in. Lovely musty smell. The red-haired trainee stops, and says, so sweetly, “Oh, it’s just too crowded, I’ll just grab the next one,” she makes a sad face, “You guys know how I am with tight spaces.”
It’s a freight elevator, and there’s plenty of room. I could insist, but I respect her instincts. So I hold the door, instead. As she walks by our hands brush. I feel electric.
The goddess tells her, “Oh Jennie, you’re so silly sometimes. We’ll hold the limo for you.”
As the elevator doors close, my eyes meet hers, and she smiles so sweetly it feels like my skin is being torn off me.

Twenty-three floors. I stand in front of the panel, so no one can get a lucky jab at the buttons and make my life difficult. I pull out the gun. It has a silencer, not that it matters here. I fire five shots. Five dead, lots of blood.

The goddess doesn’t say anything except, “I didn’t really think you’d changed.”
“I know.” I say as I relieved the dead of their unneeded valuables. It was a good haul. I shove the last tennis bracelet in my pocket as the doors open to a deserted basement level. The whole process takes about twenty seconds.

I start to leave, then turn, grab her, and kiss her. It’s a hard, long, passionate kiss, and for a moment I almost believe she feels it.
Then I look in her eyes, and I know she doesn’t.
“I love you.” I tell her.
“Naturally.” She tells me, and starts wiping the blood off of herself, preparing for her next performance. She’s right, damn her. And I could never move her. But in my mind I see a flash of fire and ice grinning at me, and I know that I’m not the only one hunting tonight.
I beg her to come with me.
“Don’t be silly.” 
That’s that. Who am I to question divine will?

She lets the doors close and rides back up. In about twenty seconds the elevator’s going to open. And Jennie will be waiting for what I left behind. Ancient men used to break stone by heating it, then pouring water on it. The fire to my water, and the answer to her stone. A new goddess. I smile as I duck out the back entrance, changing my spots on the fly. A chameleon.