The SMOKE, the DEAD MAN and the DARKNESS
By teh Lady Death
Bright vermillion eyes were the only indication of another's presence. The old man swallowed once, twice, thrice, but the thickness in his throat would not leave. The scent of the incense he had used in the black ceremony was pungent in his nose; sour and biting. His palms stung from where the athame had sliced his skin, letting his thin blood pour into the brass bowl set in the center of a charcoal-drawn magic circle.
His thoughts flickered back and forth, torn between fear and greed, both powerful, both slithering their way through his mind. Every whispered suggestion of his subconscious an insidious snake, twisting and coiling around logic and reality, fooling him into thinking himself powerful one instant and as vulnerable as a grounded bird the next. A long silence fell. The smoke of the incense stick drifted away, wafting slowly out the cracks of a tightly closed window covered by firmly pinned curtains of black velvet, heavy and concealing. Those iridescent slit-pupil eyes regarded the kneeling man stoically, unblinkingly.
You were the one who called for me.
The grey haired man jerked, drew back, his shoulders hunching. The impossibly soft voice of a boy-child issued from the direction of the red, staring eyes. The summoner licked his lips and decided. He decided it was worth it. He decided it was time.
(He made the wrong decision.)
"I want to enter into a contract," he declared in a voice that was high and thin, like the room had too little oxygen, like he couldn't gather enough breath. There was a faint sound like two pieces of wet flesh making contact, and though the shadows cast by tall candles hid the sight, the man knew the thing in the corner had smiled, its moist lips popping apart with that wet sound.
What do you desire?
"Everything," a burning gleam lit in the man's eyes. "Money, women, fame, I want everything. I want it now. I'll do anything, anything. Please, I want everything!" The man crawled towards the creature he had summoned, hands grasping at the wood floor, his face the very picture of rapture.
"You can give it to me can't you? I know you can; the books all say so, they say you can do anything. They call you the Phantom of Desire; they call you the Shade of Dreams and the Cursed Snake, and the Maker of Whims. Please I want -" the man stopped crawling. Shrouded in darkness, away from the comforting pools of light shed by the candles, a slim, pale hand rested on his head and a sigh issued from the fathomless dark.
'Everything', I know. How dreadfully boring.
The gray haired man never had the chance to take his decision back. That child-sized hand clenched in his hair and slammed his head against the ground. A wet crunching resonated in the hard surfaced room.
"Why…?" the man's body twitched, jerking as his brains oozed out of the front of his skull. A boy who only appeared thirteen knelt and pressed soft, rosy lips next to the man's ears to whisper in a voice too angelic for a creature like him;
I dislike boring games.
A tongue slid out from between those temping lips and licked down the curve of the man's ear to his age-spotted neck. The small mouth opened, and he bit deeply, hurrying to partake of the meal before it expired.
When he finished, the boy stood and from the breast pocket of his coat withdrew a handkerchief. He wiped his bloody mouth clean and let the kerchief slip from his fingers and sail gently to land over the mess that was the dead man's head and neck.
"Were you so hungry, My Lord, that you needed to eat such a filthy thing?" the satin tone of another man's voice echoed through the room. The boy turned his ruby gaze to the tall man with dark hair standing perfectly straight by a cracked door.
"Yes, Sebastian, I was. How long has it been?" he queried absently, ebony nails picking invisible lint from the cuff of his sleeve.
"Too long, My Lord. Not nearly as many good souls exist now as… then." The pause would have been imperceptible to human ears, the inflection in Sebastian's deep voice nonexistent.
But the boy was not a human.
His soft lips curved into a half smile, mocking and full of contempt. And for a moment Sebastian closed his eyes to remember the flavor of the soul, the delicious, tempting smell of it, beckoning with its cloying feel and taste and smell… and then he opened his eyes, a dull brown. That meal had long since passed. Left on the branch too long; it had rotted to the core.
The boy smiled, sensing the path of the taller man's thoughts. It pleased him to see the other's regret, see it writhe in his chest and leak from his eyes like a chill in the air. He beckoned with a hand.
"Come, let us go, Sebastian. He'll start to reek soon."
"Yes, My Lord."
There was a flicker of movement and the sound of cloth snapping and the two were gone. The smoke of the incense eddied and swirled in the air. Had anyone been there to see it, they may have fancied that the smoke moved uneasily as though it knew something evil had come and gone.
The room was empty then, but for the smoke, the dead man and the darkness.