BAD GRACE - quantum witch © 2005
see Prologue for warnings, rating, and summary
In which Famine returns and meets the first of Seven Sins, intimately.
2:02 – EATEN ALIVE
EUSTACIA LIVIDEO SMOOTHED SLIM FINGERS over carefully controlled dark curls, which were pulled back and pinned securely at the nape of her long slender neck. She was ready for the greatest coup of her life and didn't wish a single hair out of place, literally or metaphorically. She lived for total control - of her surroundings, of her self. Yet she was never extravagant, never over-indulged. This time would be the exception to the rule, and it was making her quiver with nerves.
As her trim limousine pulled up to the building, her deep blue eyes took it in. Tall, dark and thin as a sword, very fitting of the man Raven Sable and his entire corporation. And since his odd disappearance some months ago, there had been a flurry of attempts to take the company over.
Eustacia had, through a unique ability of her own, appealed to certain base instincts of humanity and managed to shunt everyone else aside. Some had themselves been bought out by United Holdings Holdings Ltd., the very company that currently still owned Newtrition Corp. Some had fallen prey to heart conditions just waiting for the last bit of double-cheese pizza to strike. Many had simply been overcome by offers they couldn't refuse, mostly delivered by Eustacia herself in the form of her quite legendary cioccolatatiramisú.
The rest of the deal had been strictly financial. She was loaded, mostly because she never spent money on herself, but on her craft.
To say Eustacia was a good cook was to say that Hell is a bit on the hot side during the summer so if you were visiting, it might be best to pack shorts. She was, in fact, the very best chef, not only in her native Italy but in the world. Some would have gladly stabbed their own mothers in the ear with a fork, if dear madre had been found holding a copy of Signorina Livideo's recipes. Because there were no copies of her recipes in existence. She had so far turned down several exceedingly lucrative book offers, because she simply could not be convinced to give them up for public ownership. She'd even refused a television contract. Eustacia insisted upon staying where she was, cooking for special events for the extreme elite of the world famous, in her world famous ristorante, the only soul allowed in her area of the kitchen while assistants in another kitchen two doors away performed the simple tasks of preparing ingredients and sauces. When these things were ready, they were passed carefully through a hole in the wall and sent along a conveyor to Eustacia's private kitchen. But no one dared venture into her inner sanctum. One had attempted to peek inside a few years ago and had been seized by the large dark suited guards hidden in the unexpected alcove behind the door, and removed from all polite society (and very likely the mortal coil, though nothing could be proven).
Eustacia kept all her recipes heavily guarded… inside her own head. She couldn't have explained how she did what she did anyway. It was simply a part of her.
There would be great public speculation as to why she was now in America, on her way to purchase a company that specialised in questionable junk food. But she had a plan. Oh yes, she did.
Her expensive suit - in a shade of dark blue to match her eyes - hugged her slim form and she tapped along the hallway of the excessively modern building in high heels so thin they could have been used by acupuncturists. When she entered the board room, she kept a professional smile glued to her face so as not to betray the inborn disdain for some of those she saw there. Amazingly, a few people were overweight. She'd have thought, in such a place as this, it wouldn't be allowed. But no, there were gluttons in every walk of society, every company on the planet.
Fine, she thought in the dark, secret, silent part of her mind wherein the recipes churned and roiled, Let them eat cake... until they burst internally and are choked to death on their own vomit. When I own this company, I shall make it so.
She still smiled as she prepared to address the board members, but the woman at the head of the table stood. Not entirely apologetically, the woman said, "I'm so very sorry we've wasted your time, Ms. Livideo. We tried to phone you… But the company is no longer on the market."
Eustacia's carefully schooled expression barely flickered. "Scusa… What do you mean? I was given to understand-"
"I am sorry," the woman repeated, "but Mr. Sable has returned from his... sabbatical."
And then she saw him, sitting in the corner of the room. It was so cliché that she would have rolled her eyes if she were given to such a gesture.
"Signore Sable... I see. Well. What more is there to say?" Eustacia nodded in his direction. "I regret having lost my opportunity."
"Not necessarily," he said smoothly, rising in a fluid motion to tower over the others. "If everyone will please excuse us...?"
The board members exited, casting interested glances at them both but wisely making no comments.
His dark eyes raked Eustascia's lean figure with obvious approval. "I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Signorina," he approached her and raised her delicate hand to his lips. "I have heard such high praise of your talents, and not nearly enough of your beauty."
She twitched an eyebrow and very nearly smiled. "Signore Sable, what sort of... opportunity are you suggesting?"
Smiling more openly now, he met her firm gaze. "My company is very successful, as are you. A canny lady, to be sure. Undoubtedly you know enough of the... truth of what I sell, that someone with your interests shouldn't be considering acquiring mine. Binding your name and reputation to my products... Forgive me, but it seems rather out of place."
Eustacia stepped away from him, and approached the high, thin windows overlooking the neat grounds. "Ah, but signore, you do not really understand what I want. I know that you sell dietary items of astoundingly suspicious origin, masquerading as food. I know that your factories do not know what they are doing. That one produces the 'food' and ships it overseas to another that seals it in plastic, which in turn sends it to yet another that labels it with your name. An effective chain of deceit. I know, as well, that your most recent addition, MEALS ™, is actually," she pronounced her words carefully, "excessively counteractive to intentions. One would grow fat and starve to death on a month's worth of this product."
Sable chuckled lowly, clearly not at all alarmed at the extent of her knowledge nor caring how she'd discovered these facts.
She half-turned at the sound, knowing that he would not back down. She could not threaten such as him.
Inwardly, she began to tremble, feeling something without a name she cared to know stirring, rising, clawing its way out…
"Thus, I inquire," Sable continued smoothly, "as to why a world-renowned chef, creator of the most sumptuous foodstuffs on the planet, would want anything to do with this? Why you would wish to have your exquisite face and your peerless name on such spurious products?"
She turned back to him, her eyes glowing fiery blue with a glint of anger. And for the first time in her life, she lost her temper and began to shout.
"Because it is no more than the unwashed masses deserve! The so-called cream of high society are busy gorging themselves to sickness on my fine fare, wasting it! I cook the finest and most carefully designed foods in the world, meant to be savoured, meant to be enjoyed only once in a great while. This is why I work so exclusively! They say they appreciate my art, but they beg for more and more, beg me to sell to the masses and depreciate it! They callously indulge their appetites and are never satisfied! They eat and eat until they are soft and fat and would not even pass for a prime cut of meat in a butcher's shop! They are not fit to swill with pigs, Signore! They are disgusting gluttonous monsters, the lot of humanity! And if they ever declare they must lose weight, they turn not to proper food and exercise but easy solutions! More food, aimed at taking care of the problem! Hah! So I will give in and sell to the masses, who should be induced to buy the most expensive of diet foods in order to starve themselves to an early grave! Yes, I would help them to succeed at doing it, as they cannot control their own filthy urges!"
In the few moments of wild self-exposure, her hair had come slightly undone, and a hard flush had risen in her soft olive skin.
Sable himself had caught his breath, staring at her with a strange passion he had never shown nor experienced except during the aborted apocalypse. He recognized… kindred.
"My lady," he whispered darkly, "I would, this very moment, offer you my entire company on a silver platter with a tasteful spring of parsley. You are exactly what I have been seeking... I had been wondering why… It seems that you are the very reason I returned to this world..."
He slowly came toward her, as she stood there panting in a sort of muted fury, and placed one long slim fingertip to her lips. "Look into my eyes, Signorina, and see me for what I truly am..."
And she did.
And she saw
the world laid to ruin crops failed the soil dusty dry heaps of skeletal bodies near death children lying under bare tree bellies distended in the final stages of starvation
the entire world
in his bony hands
wasting away
And she shuddered, but not entirely with loathing. "You... you are Fa… You're nothuman -"
"Shh," he whispered, stroking his fingertip along her lovely high cheekbone, cupping his hand behind her beautifully sculpted head. "My dear, neither are you, any longer. You have given in to Another, been hollowed out by something greater, for a higher purpose. Your own will and personality became the perfect home for a Force beyond what any mere human could encompass. The same happened to myself and my Immortal Comrades, many years ago…" His breath fluttered across her lips as he came closer still. "Ah, Signorina… So beautiful, so deadly... you are a Sin..."
Eustacia-Gluttony felt it now, clearly, for what it was. What it had always been, lurking deep inside her mind and heart. She shivered again as his fingers worked her hair lose from its confinement, tangling in the long blue-black waves.
He was the same as she. They could work together toward the same goal.
His thin lips were on hers as she finally abandoned all control... and virtually devoured him with her own eternal, damnable, and unappeasable hunger.