Seduction of the Soul, part 3

A/N: The events in this story take place during DPU 26.

Manson Mansion, 09:06 PM.

That evening Pamela was struck with shock when she saw her daughter walking down the stairs with her best look, wearing a black minidress with a pentagram cleavage, held tightly around the waist by a purple belt with a skull-on-a-broken-heart silver buckle. On top, she wore a small ivory leather shrug, and what had to be… designer combat boots(?), that ended inches below her adorable knees. Around her neck she wore a black choker adorned with an actual-gold Ank with a real red ruby, a little lacy but otherwise complementing the outfit. But the most impressive part of that vision was that she was wearing make up! Not the gloom and unbeautiful goth make up she wears every day —she rarely wears a different make up, if not ever!— but what she defined as her "dating make up," that had amazingly two different colors!

She has never seen her with anything other than black and purple, but here she had pink cheeks, she applied glow in the dark Cherry Red lipstick, and dark green glittering eye shadow that contrasted with her beautiful purple eyes. It wasn't too exaggerated to make her look as a clown, or too scarce to go unnoticed, it was just enough. Enough to say her daughter look phenomenal, and combined with her new blunt bob cut with red highlights that she got a few weeks ago, she looked as a completely different person.

And to make things better she was in an uncharacteristic good mood, as though all the problems of the world were gone.

What made the look complete, however, what made her daughter look so fabulous was this strange sense of confidence she literally got on one night.

Sam was always withdrawn and aloof, except when it came to rage against everything she and her father stand for; but she always knew that was just a defense mechanism, a chasm she made to keep herself from getting hurt.

Sam had always been an attractive girl, just understated, Pamela always thought, who did not try to distinguish herself from other girls, not in a good way at least. But the Sam that walked down those stairs tonight knew very damn well that she was somebody—that she was more than anyone else and no one could prove her otherwise. She was the heartbreaker.

Now, as Pamela gaped in awe, Sam came down slowly, like a beauty-pageant contestant; and now she remembers, she has won two of those: one when she was seven and the other one seven years later, though her boyfriend was the judge so it wasn't much of a fair win. Maybe in a few years, when seven years had passed since her las contest, she'd win a third one.

"Looks like somebody's got a date," she said, glad to see her daughter happy again. "Did you manage to fix things again with your boyfriend?"

"Uh… No… we haven't talked all day," Sam said, putting on her red skull earrings made of pure garnet, "I just… I thought I needed a change. Going out on my own, you know. Go to a club, dance a little bit, use dad's black credit card for a change," she murmured this last line to herself. "Clear my mind out of Danny."

"Are you sure there's not a meeting with a special somebody?" she winked her eye.

"No, mom! There's not a special somebody," she growled.

"Sweetie, you know you can tell me anything," she began again, "but if you don't want to, it's ok. Just call when you want me to pick you up. And remember to be careful with what you drink; never drink anything from a stranger—God knows what would they put in your drink to do all kinds of—" then she stops her ranting for a moment to look for something on her purse, a red crazy straw she hands to her daughter.

"Ah, what is this for?"

"Is a special straw, it changes color if your drink has any drug in it."

"Woa. Uh… Thanks, mom…" said confused, taking the straw. What would her mom need one of this for? "I hope it stays red," claims leaving the house, putting it inside her black purse.

Sam leaves the house with a smile on her face and a sense that the world belong to her, that she could and would do anything. This, Pamela admitted (with maybe-big-or-maybe-small shame), was the child that she had dreamed of having—the Sam that could make the world tremble at her not-so-small feet with stunning brains and breathtaking beauty, but most important, the living proof that she was an excellent parent— better than her mother.

Crowley's Hell, 09:51 PM

For more than fifteen minutes Sam sat in the redly lit dinning section of this club she has only heard about in whispers, drinking red wine while waiting for the coming of a stranger that she met last night. Why would he ask her to meet him here? And what kind of place has a light fixture that displays a red pentagram on the ceiling!? Not like she didn't like it, actually it totally goes with the theme, but it was really strange even for her.

She doesn't know why would she even decide to call him and why she agreed on having a date with him in a place like this where she could only enter because she had the surname Manson on her ID, despite still being underage. It is just not like her, she's never done something like this, going out on a date with a complete stranger who calls her pretty like she did with Elliot…

Danny is right. Maybe she should think things through, especially when somebody tells her she's pretty. What the Hell, Sam?! You're smarter than this! she thought with her right hand on her forehead, glaring at the flame of her crimson candle, and if he doesn't show up before I'm done with this grape juice that burns, well is his lose his lose? What the Hell do I mean with that?! Ugh, I don't even know what I'm thinking about.

Sam was almost done with her wine. Then he finally shows up just when Sam was seconds away from getting up and running the hell out of this club.

She had to admit she was glad to see him.

Now that she could see him under a better light, she realized, as he got closer to their table, that not only he was tall and muscular, even imposing, but he also had the same kind of good looks as Danny.

Was she seeing things right or was she hallucinating?

He wore an all-silver three-piece suit with a platinum tie, and only a black shirt, and gamusa shoes. She reckoned he was the ultimate good looker. Was this guy really into her? Would he try to seduce her somehow? She couldn't know for sure, this was something so new for her.

"Hell-o there, Zoolander," she greets with a coy smile.

"Hi. I'm sorry for the delay, I had some business to attend first," explained pulling his seat.

"Business?"

"Yes. Long story short, I just performed a hostile takeover of a rival company," said siting on the table; his hair was slick and tied in a flowing ponytail just as yesterday.

"Sounds interesting."

"You might think that, but I wouldn't like that to be our theme of conversation."

"Really, I would like to hear about that. Because your card says you're a psychic investigator."

"I am, but I like to diverse, to multitask, going from place to place, and leave my mark on the world so people knows I was here. So I started a new company, and it's been keeping me very busy lately. Just now I had to fly to get here for our date," he explained.

"So this is a date?"

"Well, that's what I labeled in my schedule."

"Glad to know," she lowered her face to hide a smile.

"So… why don't you tell me more about you?"

"Like what? What would tall, dark and handsome like to know about me?"

"Well, for starters, why would such a cute girl as you go goth?" he began.

"You know, being called too cute to be goth is not as much of a compliment as you might think."

"Sorry, does it bother you I call you cute?"

"Never said it did," she smiled, then pretended to read the menu, barely glimpsing at it. "Just saying, we goths come in too many shapes. Even in multicolored teddy bear shapes."

"What?"

"Long story," she waved her hand, as to say I don't wanna talk about it. "I'll tell you why; if you tell me what were you doing there in the bookstore yesterday."

"I usually like to see other people's alleged pain whenever I feel down, it brings up my mood to see those who believe to know misery talk about it. They think they know real pain because they don't fit in or some crap like that, but they have never even been to third world country where every street is a war zone. That's real misery. Most goths are prone to histrionic, but you… you seemed to be different, real."

"Well, that, eh…" she stammered pulling her hair behind her ear, "honestly… I'm no different from them," she admitted. "The reason I became Goth is nearly the same as everyone in that bookstore I think."

"Which are…?"

"You know… just stupid kid stuff, I guess, like thinking dark stuff are cool because it has the word 'dark' on it, or feeling it was the one way to be unique and different from others, to express how I feel about my parents…"

"And how do you feel about them?"

"Is this a shrink session?"

"Just trying to make some conversation, though my sister always had a knack for that."

"They made me feel bad, angry…" she raised her voice slightly in anger. "I remember my mom used to call me her little piggy when I was little," she clenched her fist. "They would always threw away my posters. Never nurtured my self-esteem or personality, tried to mold me after them. Just slowly… steadily… grinding away at my soul. Trying to make me… disappear. To turn me into a shallow porcelain doll they can show to everyone."

"Well, you're quite pale," said trying to hold his laugh.

"Are you laughing? 'Cause you're not exactly tanned."

"No, no…" said trying to sound serious. "No laughing."

Sam was peeved.

"This is a big joke to you."

"Everything is a joke when you look at it from above… I bet you wish them away, don't you?"

Sam looked the other way, thinking about this question. "Sometimes…" she admitted, "sometimes… they are good parents though," said thinking how her mom tried to cheer her up yesterday.

"Speaking from experience… it is not the same to say we want them out of our lives, as to watch them fade away in a massive ball of flames," said reaching her fist, holding it gently. "They're our parents no matter, and yours, they might not get any Mom and Dad of the year award, or be the coolest and most open minded parents of all, but I am pretty sure they are always there for you whenever you need them, right?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right on that," she thought back, unclenching her fist.

"You know, I remember I used to give my father a lot trouble and never appreciated what he did for me. I was always bitching about how he embarrassed me in front of my friends. Then there was this one time, we were working on a haunting by a red-eyed ghost from Wisconsin, he was like way too powerful for me. I was nothing to him. It would have killed me because for going against him alone. Then someone shouts my name, it was my old man. And it was so scary because he's just standing there silent, face-to-face with that ghost. I couldn't even look him in the eye, he was scarier than the ghost."

"Let me guess, he saved you that night, didn't he?'

"Yes, he risked his life that night, and for what? For a whiner who complained about how much he embarrassed him and got treated as a child. I remember telling him that I hated him many time. After the fight he looked at me and said, 'Son, you don't like me that's fine. It's not my job to be liked. It's my job to raise you right.'"

"Wow… if… only my parents weren't so afraid of ghosts," she chuckled nervously. "What happened after that?"

"He died along with my whole family."

Sam opens her eyes in shock. "You serious?"

"What did you think I meant before? That's why I wear this," said he, showing a silver skull ring on his right hand," it's a memento mori. Unlike your boyfriend, I've hunted real ghostly threats, the ones that won't appear in the news or haunt the streets because they know not to draw for attention. The ones who matter, the ones he can't find, because he doesn't know they exist… The ones that would burn your whole family just for the hell of it. "

"Wow… I… I'm sorry. Your dad, he sounded like a great guy," said not knowing what to think. "What did you do then?"

"After that I went to live with a friend of the family, but I was so pissed I eventually ran away and went down a dark path, lived a very self-and-others-destructive live full of bad choices, with chaos as my drug of choice. Luckily I grew out of it. But enough of that! The past is in the past, what matters is the now and the future. But most important the now."

"Why do I feel like hugging my mom and dad now?" Sam said. "You know, I don't know why, but there is something about you that looks so familiar," she admitted.

"Yeah, I got one of those faces."

"Yeah, I guess so."

Now that he sits in front of her, she was totally sure—there was not a spec of doubt in her mind! He looked exactly like Danny, only but taller, with muscles and… well to put it simple, he was as a grown up and better looking version of Danny. She didn't know—she didn't understand how she could have missed something like that before. It was the same dark hair, the same fair skin, and the same good looks, only but more "sensual," so to speak. But his hair was straight, not wavy or spiky, and his eyes were a darker shade of blue, with the glitter of a frozen lake reflecting the midnight sky.

Who was he, and why did he look so much as Danny?

She pondered on these questions while he reads the menu.