Enclave

by Brandon Varnell

  When the trio of fighters were done, the Goliath of the group clicked his tongue in discontent. “Well, that was boring. I was expecting a bit more of a challenge.”

  “You cannot expect every group of demons we run across to be strong, Leon,” the woman said in a light, almost airy tone of voice, sounding just a tad dry. “You also have to remember that it is unlikely they expected anyone to find this place. This location is rather off the map. I doubt they would send anyone stronger than minor demons to guard a single individual.”

  Leon laughed, his shaggy lion’s mane of hair shaking. “I guess.” The large man then turned to look at Tristin, squinting his light green eyes at the much smaller figure. “So, this is the person we’ve come for? Kind of a shrimp, ain’t he?”

  Tristin bristled a bit, but instead of responding like he was annoyed, he gave the man a massive smile. “That’s an awfully mean thing to say. I prefer the term gracefully lithe myself. It sounds so much more pleasing to the ear, don’t you think?”

  “Ha ha!” The man’s booming laugh reverberated around the room, making Tristin’s body rumble. “You’ve got spunk! I think I like you!”

  “You don’t know how pleased I am to hear that,” Tristin said in a voice laden with sarcasm. He then looked at the much larger, towering figure with an inquiring gaze. “So, you’re Leon Tréan? The fifth member of The XIII and the one called Lionheart.”

  “That’s right.” The man grinned, bright white teeth gleaming in the light of the room. Tristin could swear he saw the man’s teeth actually sparkles. What the hell kind of toothpaste did this man brush with to make them shine like that? “I’m pleased to see that my reputation precedes me. Hahaha! It’s good to be well-known.”

  While the man laughed, Tristin looked at the other figure, the female with the claws. Now that he was getting a better look at her, he had to say that she was definitely his type. Granted, he didn’t really have a type. If someone was hot and female, he was more than willing to bed them, but that was exactly why this girl was his type. She was hot, and she was female. Sure, she might be a little on the short side, but she had the most awesome legs he’d ever seen on a woman. They were the kind of muscular legs found mainly on gymnasts and female martial artists. She had legs like fucking Chun Li. Her eyes were bright sapphires, though they lacked much in the way of emotions. Not that he cared. Her eyes might be twin pools of emotionless epicenters, but her face was gorgeous, soft and feminine, with delicate cheeks, luscious lips, and a rounded chin with a cute little cleft.

  He wondered if he could seduce her to his bed. She could probably give him a lot of vitality.

  “If you keep staring at me, I am going to stab you.”

  And she apparently didn’t like people staring at her.

  “Sorry,” Tristin said, not quite staring anymore but still glancing her way. “I was just wondering how long it would take to get you into bed with me.”

  While Leon laughed like a loon, the scowling young woman turned her head to look at Samantha. “You did not tell me that the person we were rescuing was such a lecherous man.”

  “Because I knew you would not help me rescue him if I told you,” Samantha said, her voice even. She ignored the way the other woman glared at her. “Tristin is the best intelligence operative I have. It was he who discovered the insidious nature of the new Pope and Bishop Vertrou.”

  The woman, unable to say anything, looked away from the raven-haired commander. Tristin found that amusing, even as he finally managed to identify who this woman was. “You’re Sif, aren’t you? The one called the Destroyer of Men.”

  Sif didn’t answer him, simply choosing to glare at him instead. Tristin scratched at the back of his neck. He could totally see why this woman was called that now. It seemed her absolute hatred of all things male and perversion rang true. Like Leon, she was also a member of the XIII, the Seventh, if he was not mistaken.

  “You know, if you keep glaring at me, you’re going to get wrinkles all over that beautiful face,” Tristin commented, matching the woman’s glare with an obnoxiously bright smile. If this woman thought he would back down because of her glare, then she had another thing coming. He messed with Christian for shits and giggles, and screwing with that man was like poking a sleeping dragon.

  Sif just glared harder.

  “Hahaha! He makes a good point, Sif. You should stop glaring so much and start smiling a little more.”

  Sif shifted her glare from Tristin to Leon.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Samantha declared. “We need to leave before the Church realizes what’s happened here. Come on, you three.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Leon said, his massive, booted feet rumbling as he began to move, following Samantha as she marched from the room. Sif tossed one last glare at Tristin before she, too, stalked forward in the raven-haired woman’s wake.

  Tristin took one last look around the room, sighed, and then hurried to catch up with them.

  “I really hope the next place I’m taken too is a big city. City girls are so easy, and I could really use a good, hard fucking.”

  ***

  Christian woke up on something soft. As he stirred back to the land of the living, that was the first thing he noticed. The object underneath him, a bed, he guessed, was like heaven against his back. It managed to somehow conform to his body, like a mold almost, but far softer. Several other soft things rested under his head. Pillows, most likely. There must have been a lot of them, or maybe just one really large, really fluffy pillow. He imagined this must be what it would feel like to lay on a cloud—if clouds had solid mass and weren’t just gathered precipitation.

  After a while, Christian’s mind started to finally become a little more coherent, allowing him to think about something other than cloud pillows and how nice the bed felt. He noticed that his body was warm. There was a thick blanket of some kind covering him.

  Questions popped into his mind. Where was he? How had he gotten there? What happened to Asmodeus? Was Catherine still alive? And what about Lilith?

  Lilith...

  Recalling the name of the young woman he’d fallen for, Christian opened his eyes. He needed to find Lilith, to find out if she was alright. But before that, he needed to know where he was.

  You can’t start looking for someone if you have no idea where you are yourself.

  Everything was blurry when he first opened his eyes. It was all just an indistinct mass of color. He blinked once, then again, his eyes adjusting, his vision sharpening, regaining focus, allowing him to see what was in front of him. A ceiling. At least, he suspected it was ceiling. It looked different from every other ceiling he had ever come across.

  Much of the ceiling was made of varnished planks of wood and granite—all except one spot directly over the bed, which was a tiny square of space that was made of glass. The crystal-clear material allowed plenty of what he assumed was natural sunlight to filter in through the room. It was probably the sun shining in through the glass that generated the warmth he was feeling. That said, it was quite odd. While that space was made of glass, he couldn’t see a sun or sky. It was just a uniform shade of yellow.

  Wanting to know more about the room he found himself, Christian sat up. The covers, a thick, soft blanket, slid down his frame, the cool air of the room hitting his body and bringing goosebumps to his skin. He ignored the chill and scanned the room’s interior, surveying everything with a keen eye.

  Wooden walls made up most of the room. Only one wall was not made of wood but white plaster instead. There was a door located on the wall on the opposite side of the bed, which Christian assumed led to the outside. Another door was on his left. A restroom, maybe? Other amenities were arranged neatly around the room: a desk and a chair, a small coffee table made of lacquered wood, two dressers, a closet, and two potted plants near the door that added color to the room.

  As he studied his unfamiliar surroundings, a slight shifting of the bed alerted him to the fact that he wasn’t alone.
Someone else was in the bed. Shock running rampant through his system, Christian looked to his left and down.

  It was Lilith.

  Relief washed through Christian, sweeping away the worry he’d been feeling in the back of his mind. Lilith was here, with him, safe. While there were a few more issues to deal with, the biggest one had been solved. He still had a lot of questions, such as how they had gotten to... wherever they were, who took him and Lilith to this place, what happened to Asmodeus, and where was Catherine, but at least he could now rest easy knowing that Lilith was safe.

  He continued looking down at Lilith. The young woman was sleeping with him in the bed, lying on her back. Golden hair spread around her like a halo and shone with a brilliance and luster that made her feel like she was not of this world. Her chest rose and feel with each breath, which caused her two prominent twins to jiggle enticingly. Slightly parted lips whistled a soft melody as air passed through them. It was captivating and enchanting in ways that shouldn’t have been possible.

  Christian found himself mesmerized by Lilith’s incomprehensible beauty, from the sway of her chest to the elegant splendor of her lovely hips that tapered off into a thin waist and her spectacular legs with their awe-inspiring flawlessness.

  As he continued to stare down at the woman he’d fallen for, his eyes were invariably drawn to her lips. Shifting positions so that he was lying on his side, his left arm propping him up, Christian raised his right and reached over to Lilith’s face. Calloused fingers trailed across unblemished skin, from her cheek up to her forehead. He touched a strand of golden thread before slowly tucking it behind her small ear. He then cupped her face and used his thumb to caress her delicate cheek.

  While he continued his actions, his thoughts began to drift. He really should figure out where they were. Christian didn’t even know how they got here, and that was a problem. What if they’d been taken hostage? Were they in danger? But then, if they were in danger, wouldn’t they be tied up and in separate rooms? Why put them in a comfortable bed together? Why go through all this trouble?

  After several seconds of vicious, circular thinking, Christian shook his head. The only people after him were the Catholic Church, and they had a kill on sight order for him. It couldn’t be them. And he didn’t know anyone else who was after him. Samantha? No. she’d been taken off the case. Say what you will about her, but Samantha wasn’t the kind of woman to disobey direct orders no matter how much she disagreed with them.

  “Christian?”

  Startled by a soft voice that flowed through his ear with the soothing sound of a wind chime, Christian looked down to see Lilith, her eyes fluttering open. Bright, baby blue eyes stared at him from behind a half-lidded gaze. They moved about the room, slowly, before landing back on him.

  “Christian,” she said again, her voice a little firmer.

  “Hey,” he greeted. “I’m glad to see you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

  “I’ll feel better after you give me a good morning kiss.”

  A blink was the only sign Christian gave that he’d heard her. One second passed, then another, before, finally, the young man shook his head, his raven hair swaying. “Somehow, I feel like I should have expected that response.”

  Lilith couldn’t help but nod. “Yes. You should have.” She then looked at him with an imploring gaze. “Kiss?”

  Perhaps it was because of the way she phrased the question, or the tone in her voice, so childish and carefree despite their strange situation, but Christian couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him. Lilith puffed up her cheeks, eyes narrowed ever so slightly at the sight of him laughing, but he spoke through his chuckles, saying, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. I just couldn’t help it for some reason.”

  Before Lilith could complain about his insensitivity, he leaned in and planted a small kiss on her lips. Lilith sighed into his mouth, content little noises escaping her parted lips. The kiss, soft and ephemeral, lasted no more than a few seconds. When they broke off, neither of them were very satisfied, but Christian knew they couldn’t afford to let their actions become too passionate.

  Now that she was awake, Lilith sat up in the bed to get a look around the room. The covers pooling about her waist to reveal a light pink, spaghetti strap shirt hugging her feminine figure. One of the straps slid down her shoulder. Lilith absently brought the strap back up, her brows furrowing as she took a gander at their new surroundings.

  “Christian? Where are we?”

  “I wish I knew,” Christian said with a helpless shrug. Running a hand through his hair, he released a deep sigh. “I just woke up a while ago myself.” He paused, considering something. “I might not know where we are, but I don’t think we’re in any danger. I have no clue how long we’ve been here, but the fact that we aren’t bound or locked away in a cell tells me whoever brought us here means no harm.”

  “I wonder how we got here,” Lilith spoke her thoughts out loud. She looked over at Christian, her eyes questioning, but he shook his head.

  “Don’t look at me. I have no clue either.”

  “What about that... that demon we fought?”

  “You mean Asmodeus?” Lilith gave a nod. “I’m not sure.” Pressing a hand to his face, Christian closed his eyes and tried to recall all he could about the battle against the Demon King of Lust. “I don’t remember a whole lot. Asmodeus and I fought, I lost, but then something strange happened.” While much of the battle was a blur, there were two things about it that stood out to Christian the most. The first was when Asmodeus had dropped him after he’d already been beaten. The second was the strange red dot on the demon’s back. “I think I remember stabbing Asmodeus in the back, something powerful washing over me, and then nothing.”

  “So, to sum things up, we have no clue where we are, how we got here, who brought us here, or anything else,” Lilith said.

  “Pretty much.”

  Lilith didn’t seem to know how to take that, so she kept talking. “What do you think we should do, then? I mean, we can’t stay in this room forever.”

  “True enough.” Christian slid out of the bed, bare feet touching incredibly soft carpet, the kind that must have cost a fortune. He wasn’t wearing much, just a pair of black pajama pants and nothing else, but Lilith didn’t seem to mind as she gazed at his broad back and shoulders. “I suppose we could just go out and do some surveillance or something, provided the door isn’t locked. Since no one’s come to get us and it doesn’t look like we’re prisoners, I think it’ll be alright if we leave the room.”

  He turned to her and extended his hands. Lilith took them, allowing him to pull her out of the bed. Her little toes flexed as they touched the velvety floor.

  “You sure this is a good idea?” asked Lilith. She didn’t look very convinced. “Just because it doesn’t look like we’re prisoners doesn’t mean whoever brought us here will appreciate us wandering around their place.”

  “It’s not like we have much of a choice, though,” Christian said. “I mean, I suppose we could stay in here, but who knows how long it’ll be before whoever lives here comes to check up on us. We also don’t know who brought us here to begin with, and then there’s Catherine to consider. She was with us when we fought Asmodeus. She’s given us a lot of help in the past, so I want to find out what happened to her.”

  “I guess you’re right.” Lilith worried her lower lip. “I had completely forgotten about Catherine, but now that you’ve mentioned her, I am a little worried. She had been pretty badly injured when our car was tossed around by that explosion.”

  “Right, so we should find her as quickly as possible. After that, we can find out where we are and who brought us here.”

  Their decision made, Christian and Lilith took a quick moment to look around them room for their clothes. They didn’t find them, each guessing that their clothing had been ruined by the battle, but they did find a pair of sandals to put on. After slipping the footwear onto their feet, they went toward the door. It was
unlocked, which both did and didn’t surprise the two. It showed a complete lack of security, but it also supported their belief that whoever owned this place wasn’t keeping them as prisoners.

  Upon exiting the room, the two found themselves standing in a long hallway. The soft carpet had gone from a light, off-white color to a deep amethyst. The walls, made from varnished wood, had several pieces of artwork hanging off them as decoration. Most of them were landscapes, a prairie with waist high grass and a clear blue sky, a savanna featuring a large tree in the center surrounded by a pride of lions, a cityscape set ablaze by a beautiful sunset. Each painting was beautifully done. Someone must have put in a lot of effort to paint those landscapes.

  Lacing his fingers with Lilith’s more delicate digits, Christian began walking down the hall. He had no clue where they were going, but if they wanted to get even a basic feel for the place, it probably didn’t matter where they went. They had to start somewhere.

  As they padded along the hall, the pair saw that there were several doors in this hall. All of them were on the same side as the door they had just come out of. Several of the doors were locked, but the few that weren’t revealed fully furnished bedrooms that looked almost identical to their own.

  “I wonder,” Lilith murmured with a contemplative expression as she gestured at the doors. “Do you think this is some kind of hotel or something? It sort of looks like one. A long hallway filled with doors. Identical bedrooms. Maybe this is some kind inn and the person who owns it is the one who brought us here?”

  “It’s possible,” Christian began, “But I don’t think so. While most of the rooms are nearly identical, there are several differences. I noticed a few personalized touches to each room, posters, televisions and the like. Some of them look like they’ve been lived in for a long time.”

  “A dorm room, then?” Lilith theorized.

  “Also possible, and more likely than a hotel or an inn.” Christian frowned as he looked at the wall with the paintings. They were passing one called “Descendancy.” In it, there were dozens of statuesque women, all tall and possessing a dignified bearing, and all containing a regal beauty that reminded Christian of a queen. “It might also be some kind of boarding house, though how we could possibly end up in such a place is beyond me.”