by Melos,Alana
The mage shifted slightly, and brushed his hand across his white button-up shirt with his knuckles. “That depends… what happened to your face?” His brows came down as he studied me, and the interest which had entered his eyes was rapidly dissipating.
I somehow managed to keep hold of my smile as he pointed out the imperfections. “War wounds, you know how it goes… it’ll be fixed soon. Can you help me?”
“There’s something off about you,” he said, his smile crumpling into a frown. “Your aura… the energies are imbalanced.”
I hated it when he talked about that mystical stuff. “You know me, Alistair. Can we go inside, at least, and negotiate?”
Hesitating for a minute, he shook his head from side to side so slowly I could almost hear his neck creaking. “No,” he said, and I blinked in surprise. “I’m working on a delicate experiment, and the house needs to stay in perfect balance. There’s a…” He gestured with a hand, and muttered something low under his breath. A chill ran through me, and he frowned even more. “...something’s wrong. I can’t take a chance.”
“Then do the spell outside,” I said, my own smile fading into neutralness. “I’ll… owe you one. I just really need to find Regulus--”
“Regulus?” he asked, and storm clouds swept across his handsome face. “That psycho? No.” And then he started to close the door.
I put my foot in the crack before he could shut it completely. “I just need to find him,” I said. “You don’t have to talk to him or anything, so whatever beef you have doesn’t matter.” Frustration began to well up, and I shoved it away, giving him an earnest look. “Please.” I almost spit the word out.
Alistair hesitated, then shook his head again. “He’s a manipulator, Caprice, I thought you would have had enough of that with Harry. Don’t find him. He’s better lost.”
“Come on, man, I can take care of myself,” I said. I forced a smile. “I’m a big girl.”
“No,” he said firmly. “Come back in a couple of days, and I’ll see what I do to help you, but I can’t now, even if I wanted to.” He put pressure on the door, and squeezed my foot out of the crack.
I stared at the door, frustration overwhelming me. He said no. He had never said no to me before. He said no to me. No one said no to me. I banged on the door with my fist. “Alistair!” I shouted. “Open this fucking door right now!” I waited, and didn’t hear anything, so I resumed banging. “Alistair, god dammit! Open this door!” Once again, he didn’t respond to my entirely reasonable demand. I reached down and grabbed my duffle, then slammed my hand against the door in a knock. “This is your last chance, you fucking bastard, now open the goddamn do--”
I didn’t get to finish my threat as some unseen force shoved me away from the door so hard I went sailing through the air. It knocked the wind out of me, but I caught myself with my telekinesis before I hit the other side of the street. Floating in midair and trying to get my breath back, I cursed Alistair in my mind. The house stood unmolested, and I would have to leave it that way. I narrowed my eyes and scowled at it, knowing he could be watching and listening.
“Fuck you, ass,” I said, rubbing one of my scars. “We’ll see how you like it next time you need me.”
I flew straight up then angled away, pride stinging from the rejection. I didn’t have any other place to go other than the Underground. There was one last person who at least knew Regulus back in the day, and maybe he knew where the Axis defector was hiding: Malech.
Chapter Three
The Underground was literally underground… a sprawling nightclub hidden from sight, laying underneath the streets of Imperial City. There were a few entrances, and I used the closest one. I paid the cover charge, and headed inside. During the day, there weren’t too many people here, but someone was always partying. I think Malech lived in his nightclub, but I wasn’t certain. He was a demon, or so the rumors went, and I had no reason to disbelieve them. I saw him on occasion, flirted with him, but he had his business and I had mine. Many unsavory things went on here, and let me tell you: never go in the bathrooms, not unless you absolutely had to.
I landed at my regular balcony and scanned the place with both my eyes and mind, looking for the owner. When the waitress came over to take my order, I stopped her. “Is there a way I could get a meeting with Malech?”
She smiled vacuously at me, and cooed, “Of course you can. You just need to say so. Please wait here, and I’ll be back shortly.”
I watched her walk away, a bit worried at the ease of getting a meeting with such an illustrious figure. Malech had been here for… I don’t know how long. Long before I was born. He hadn’t aged a day. I’d seen pictures of him on the net and in papers from decades ago, and he looked the same, though he dressed in the current style of the times. There were a lot of metas who didn’t age, or who aged slowly, so it could be possible he was human and not an actual “demon”. Since he’d been here for so long, there were a lot of rumors about him--and the Underground in general. None of them were good. Of course, rumors never were.
The waitress returned and flashed that empty smile at me again. “Right this way, Ms. E--”
“No last names,” I snarled at her, bristling. So very few people knew my real name, and I wanted to keep it that way. That Malech knew it without me telling him unnerved me. This might not have been a good idea, but I was committed to it and charged in full ahead. I grabbed my duffle, slung it over my shoulder, and followed the waitress’ swaying hips.
She led me to a door marked ‘employees only’ and opened it, standing aside so I could enter. I glanced to her, and flicked a bit of my mental awareness out to have a feel for her thoughts… and found she was a perfectly empty vessel. No one was home. I shut down my telepathy again, and walked inside. An automaton wasn’t going to scare me off. How she got that way, on the other hand, did make me a little cautious.
It wasn’t a room, but a stairwell. It twisted around like those you’d see in a lighthouse, and I climbed. It was lit with low red lights, giving the shadows a crimson edge, as if they were traced in blood. I climbed for about a minute before I realized I should have hit the top edge of the Underground, or maybe even the street which lay above the club. Something wasn’t right here. I stopped on the stairwell and looked behind me… to the door I’d just entered. “Fuck this,” I said. “I’ll find him another way.”
I opened the door and stepped out into a plush room, dominated by a wide black desk. It wasn’t where I entered at, but rather the booth which stood dominant over the main dance floor. The room had just the one door from which I entered, and windows ringed all the way around it, shaded against the garish lights to keep them from penetrating too far. A high backed chair was behind the desk turned away from me, and the rest of the room stood couches and chairs, as if this was anyone’s posh living room. A cloying spice scent hung in the air, and it had a distinctly unpleasant smell underneath… as if someone was trying to disguise the odor of a decomposing body by dumping potpourri over it. The carpet lay thick underneath my feet, and my footfalls made no sound at all as I walked over to the desk, taking in my surroundings as I did so.
Have I mentioned yet how much I hated magic? Unpredictable, uncontrollable, unusable… at least for me. Yet, here I was in the demon’s lair, waiting to tap the dark arts just to get a stupid question answered. Alistair I had under control, usually, but this was an unknown resource.
“Hello,” I said. What else do you say in a situation like this?
He didn’t speak, but held up a hand so I could see it, indicating for me to wait. I narrowed my eyes and drew my sword out from the duffle before dropping the bag on the floor. For a second, temptation drew me a picture of stabbing him in the back through his fancy leather chair. That was my frustration talking and I couldn’t give in to the impulse. I did raise it up and entertained the idea of chopping off those fingers, but in the end I laid it on the desk. The bruises from where Alistair’s invisible force had knocked me back into the
street reminded me that I shouldn’t mess with magic in its lair… and this was Malech’s lair.
“Wise,” he said, his voice deep and pleasant. “You can learn.”
“I’ve had a rough couple of weeks,” I said. I smiled as I spoke. A lot of people didn’t know this, but when you smiled, it changed the pitch of your voice, made it lighter, sweeter to the ear. “What are you watching?”
“People, as always,” he said. “I find them interesting, much as your mother did.”
I checked a sigh. That right there was the whole reason why I kept my real identity a secret; people would make comparisons, and I refused to be found as the lesser, even as it stung me that I knew I was.
“Let’s not talk about family,” I said. “Else I’d be tempted to ask about yours and if rumors are true, you’re on the outs.”
“If you wish,” he said, finally swiveling around in his chair. The demon before me was handsome, breathtakingly so. His dark hair hung wild and loose around his shoulders, framing a face made for modeling. Perfectly sculpted lips curved upwards in a slight smile, and his startling bright blue eyes twinkled, as if a secret danced within him, waiting to come out.
How else to describe him? Any description I used would fall far short. Even the Doctor on his best day couldn’t compete with such glorious symmetry. It almost hurt to look at him, yet there were the tiniest of imperfections which humanized the beauty: a scar upon his chin from a blade of some kind, the slightest of wrinkles on his forehead, a deep line on one side of his face from years of sneering. His body was no less perfect than his face, and he wore a deep blue shirt unbuttoned so that his pearly white flesh gleamed next to it. It was as if Michelangelo’s creation had come alive, yet those tiny imperfections were there as well: a faint scar across his chest, a crease of skin near his navel, and a beauty mark on his angular hip. He was beautiful, so beautiful it made your heart writhe with want and love, but that beauty could turn to ugliness in a second. I’d seen it once from a distance. Someone had caused a fight in the Underground, and had roared a challenge. Malech had coalesced out of the crowd, his eyes hard and flinty and his sneer present, turning his perfection into something twisted and dark. The challenger, needless to say, hadn’t been seen again.
“What can I do for you, Capricious Whim?”
“I’m looking for Regulus,” I said, getting right to business. I planted my hands on the desk and leaned forward, giving him a good look at my cleavage. Seduction was worth a shot. “I know you knew of him, at least in the old days, and he’s hiding out. If you can either find him for me, or pass a message, I’d be most appreciative.”
Malech looked darkly amused. “A simple matter, but what would you do for me?”
“There are a lot of things I could do for you… or to you,” I said, tilting my head to the side and licking my lips. He appeared interested, and I cautiously sent out a telepathic probe, trying to catch his emotions. A flicker of lust in a sea of boredom. He reminded me in a way of Nosferatu… the layer of age hung heavy on him, and in that second, I knew all the rumors were true. He was a demon, or at least had been around long enough he thought himself as one. The implications of that were too much for me, and I withdrew a little bit from his head, keeping myself open for his emotions, but no more.
The demon smiled once more, and shook his head. “That’s nothing that I couldn’t get anywhere,” he said. “I want something more from you.”
I raised a brow skeptically and straightened. “You’re not getting my soul.” At least, that’s what I thought demons wanted.
At that, he laughed loud and richly. Amusement filtered through his thoughts, and a faint desire for something else, but I couldn’t quite catch hold of the emotion before it passed. “As if you had one,” he said. “No, I want information… of a particular type.”
“I’m an open book, for the most part,” I said. “What do you want to know?”
“Go and look out the window,” he said, gesturing to the big panel of glass nearest him.
Oooh… kay. Frowning slightly, I moved around the big desk to stand by the corner of it, and looked out, leaning upon the railing which bordered the window. Up here, he had a view of the entire bar. Space had been warped so that he could see everything in his domain at once, even when it shouldn’t have been physically possible. I looked out on the dancefloors and in the bars, but I couldn’t see anything which would draw his attention at all. I opened my mouth to say as much when I felt his presence behind me. The shadow which fell across me had weight, and the warmth at my back told me he was only a razor’s edge away from touching me. Memories of being in a dark place, blood and screaming all around me, flashed through my mind. Here and gone in an instant.
His breath tickled my ear, “Is this what you think I want?” His voice had gone from dark to midnight, low and insistent. It thrummed through me. I looked up and saw his ghostly reflection in the glass, towering over me. I looked small, embraced by darkness. My eyes stung for a moment, but I blinked it away and focused on him. The scent of him was like the smell of the room: hot and spicy, but something was decidedly unpleasant underneath, so faint I don’t think most people would have noticed it at all. The expression on his face over my shoulder was blank, like one of my masks. I touched the glass, drawing a line down the phantom reflection of his cheek.
“So perfect,” I sighed. It was. He was.
One of his hands slid around my bare midriff, and unlike Nosferatu’s chill, he was hot, almost scorching me as he caressed my bare skin. Desire sprang where he touched me, and I knew he was doing something to my body. My mind could still feel barely anything from him except boredom, a shade of lust, a whisper of interest.
“Is this what you want?” he whispered, kissing my ear softly. His lips were just as hot as his hand, and I shivered at the searing kiss, half-turning towards it. “No, no,” he said. “Look into the glass. Just listen. And feel. Watch.”
“What are you doing to me?” I breathed, and he pressed against me. He was hard; I felt his length against my ass. His other hand slid around my collarbone so his fingers could stroke the bare flesh at my throat. Each touch inflamed me, leaving a trail of lust behind. Pressing back against him, I felt the first stirrings of real desire from him, though it wasn’t all sexual. The emotions went by too fast, and were too complex to read quickly, but I responded to the desire all the same. He and I wanted.
“You want the same things I want,” he whispered, his hand around my midriff slinking lower over the pleats of my skirt. “You want sex, adoration, but above all… power.” He laid another kiss upon me, just below my ear this time, and I gasped at the heat. I could only smell him, the spicy sweet scent of him which reminded me of beautiful corpses wreathed in roses. His hand raised my skirt and slipped underneath, finding the core of my sex.
“I can give you that power,” he whispered. “You wouldn’t even have to give yourself over to me… you would be free, still. Always. But strong… no one would be able to resist you. You would be my best creation, my temptress…” He kissed me again, nipping at my neck. At the same time, he forced my legs a little apart and stroked my clit through my silky underwear.
“You want something,” I breathed. I had begun to buck my hips under the heat and his fingers. “Nothing is ever free.” I started to turn so I could reach around, but his unoccupied hand turned me back to the glass, and we stared into each other’s reflections there. Caught by his eyes, I moaned when he pushed me forward, sliding his hardness along my rear.
“All you would have to do would be what you always do… tempt people,” he said, licking my ear softly. His fingers kept rubbing me in small circular motions which teased me. I wanted more. I needed more. “Kill people,” he whispered, biting my neck as he pressed into me. I gasped. “Change you? You’re perfect as you are, my dark angel.”
I couldn’t help but to smile at that, but my smile disappeared as he moved the cloth shielding my pussy aside and slipped his fingers along my wetness. I m
oaned and curled my hands into fists. His other hand slipped underneath my shirt and found a nipple, teasing its hardness.
“What do you want from me?” I asked. I licked my lips and just enjoyed the sensations flooding through me while I partitioned part of my mind to pay attention to what he was doing, and to stay aware for danger.
“Honesty,” he said. “Something which you already give, freely and of your own will. Diversion, which you seek as earnestly as I.” His hands kept moving under my clothes, pinching my nipple, stroking my wetness. My desire had become a furnace; I was as hot as I’d ever been, wanting him, wanting release. The cold part of my mind knew there was more to this, that he was doing something to my body, making me feel this way. His lips traced a line from my jaw to my ear once more, and he blew scorching hot wind on my neck, “Would you like to see the real me?”
“We all wear masks,” I said, moving my body in time to his motions. I put one of my hands on the window fingers splayed out, but the other stayed clenched on the railing in front of it. “Who wouldn’t want a peek underneath?”
His tongue lashed out to lick my neck. It grew longer and longer as his appendage slathered my throat, almost wrapping around it. I watched the dim reflection with fascination as his perfect white skin curled as if burned and turned black, floating away in wisps of smoke which wasn’t there to reveal the raw red wetness of his muscle. His eyes stayed the same color, but they burned… oh, how they burned. Bright blue, a fire so hot it would consume anything and everything. Scales began to form, erupting from the raw muscle, and I felt claws grow from his fingertips as he rubbed me obscenely. The world melted away as he ripped my clothing, baring me to the world, to his world. I was naked, defenseless, but cherished.… The hard scales of his skin pressed into my tender flesh, exciting me in the most perverse of ways. New sensations were always welcome, and instead of drawing away, I pushed from the window back into his embrace. Horns burst from his forehead and curled around like a ram’s, thick and hard like his cock which was thrusting between my legs now.