Things That Go Bump

Chapter One. Meetings and travel.

“This is a dangerous rope you’re walking, kid.”

She waves the other woman off, smiling dismissively. The taller shrugs and weaves her way through the crowds of people with a heavy sigh heading, no doubt, for the drinks.

Her hair is silken gold falling in perfect curls down a silk dress of jade and silver embroidery.  Truly Isolt was the heart of the ball, the guests coursing around her in dances and conversation.

He offers her a hand, bowing low. His skin glimmers a slight green and he is just a bit too tall with eyes of pure pitch. She smiles, pleased to have one of his kind take notice of her, and sets a delicate hand in his. He sweeps her up into the rhythm of the dance, leading with perfect steps. He makes her laugh, makes her blush.

She stares at Isolt from across the room, downing another glass of champagne and sighing tiredly. She snatches another glass from a server who glares at her but it’s already gone. She leans against the wall and hiccups, forgetting the reckless girl across the hall for a moment.

“What’s she done to make you fear for her sanity and/or life this time, Gen?”

“Everything,” she replies sourly, shooing away the serving girl irritably. She grins at her Mistress’s knight before padding away with a gentle sway to her hips. Gen grumbles and hiccups again, suddenly very grateful to the wall as her vision blurs momentarily. “F**k, how much have I even had?”

She doesn’t dance, despite the offers. She’s not pretty like Isolt in that delicate flower kind of way, but fair enough and she knows it. Gen turns down every offer with a frown and a huff, still leaning against the same wall until finally everyone begins to shuffle home.

Eventually only Gen, Isolt, and her suitor are left in the magnificent hall. She groans slightly as her head begins to hurt a little, glancing around at the superfluous grandeur of the ballroom. It’s not as if anyone who was in this palace of a place would forget whose home they were in.

It is a huge area, a massive crystal and gold chandelier hanging perilously in the middle of a ceiling decorated with a massive mosaic of a falling angel. She’d never figured out how they managed to create such a masterpiece in mosaics so high up.

There were mirrors lined on almost every wall, excepting only the north wall which was made entirely of Isolt’s treasured aquarium, one small tunnel door, made of mahogany with a golden door knob of course, is the only way through the tacky aquarium wall.

The dance floor itself was marble, pure white but for perfect swirls of light pink and dark grey decorating the smooth stone. Gen heaves a heavy sigh, rubbing at her temples in an attempt to dispel the early onset of her hangover.

Isolt laughs, a sweet tinkling of chimes that Gen at least knows is entirely faked. He smiles, pleased to have made her happy. His words are slow and perhaps he’s a little slow himself, but he genuinely seeks to please her, only her. Isolt. Isolt, his perfect, beautiful Isolt. It was heaven meeting her finally.

He sets a hand on her shoulder.

Gen starts up when Isolt screams. It all happens so quickly the knight does the one thing she knows how to; she protects her Mistress.

He roars when she pushes him back, his skin morphing and splitting, he grows larger and thicker. Not her type? He’d have to take her.

Isolt screams again when she feels strong, slim arms around her waist bearing her along with the taller woman. She smashes through the aquarium wall efficiently, leaping straight through the onslaught of dirty fish water into the other room.

The other room is a massive, concrete room used for god only knows what. It is decorated sparsely at the edges with a few exceedingly comfortable chairs and a large, beautifully carved archway she notes leads into a kitchen. Probably used for the graphic entertainment some nobles prefer; she confirms this to herself when she notices the drain and the slight slope of the floor.

She lets Isolt go, rolling to her feet. She hears another roar as the previously rather handsome man is assaulted by fish water. Seriously, when was the last time Isolt remembered to have someone clean that thing? The poor fish...

He shrieks now and she hears the massive tearing of fabric that signals a departure from this dimension. “Guess he didn’t like the fish water,” she grumbles, shaking her hair out of her face and wiping water out of her eyes. “I certainly didn’t.”

She jumps when she hears it again, closer now, probably in the room. She fumbles at her sides for her weapons.

What she sees is not the man who’d been chasing Isolt. Instead, before her stands a slim man, mildly reminiscent of a snake. He’s rather attractive, she notes, for someone who looks like a snake about to swallow whole a particularly fat mouse. It’s then that she notices he wears what she knows to be the High Court Blood Guard’s sigil on his uniform jacket and she sighs petulantly.

Why do all the pretty ones want to kill me?

No doubt, the Blood Guards certainly have the best uniform of any of the High Court’s guards. She rests a hand on her hip, sizing him up. The black cloak of a commander, beautiful black leather boots, the crisp, white shirt of a military man though everyone knows the Blood guard act more like the kind of mercenaries that’ll do you free if it’s a challenge.

“I wish my uniform was that lovely,” she grumbles, half irritated.

“It’s the boots,” he responds, almost as quietly. She turns her head calmly, staring him the eye. She hadn’t even noticed he’d moved.

“Maybe we can all be friends and you can smuggle me out a pair.”

“The boots for the lady uniform or mine?”

“I could just take your boots.” She grins at him and pats his cheek. She can see Isolt out of the corner of her eye gagging against a wall and making general ‘ew’ faces at her. If you’re going to be racist at least be subtle about it. Or would that be species-ist?

“I like my boots.” He grins right back, slinging an arm around her shoulder. She shrugs him off and takes a step away.

“See, but I like to collect boots, especially I like to collect the boots of people who are trying to kill me, that way I have that much more of incentive to not be killed.”

“Well, I brought another present instead.” He smiles and she raises an eyebrow, on her guard now. He simply pulls a coiled whip from his jacket, letting its tip fall to the floor.

Her eyes narrow and her teeth meet in her lower lip. Draconian leather, seeker magics worked into the hilt, not to mention the beauty in its making just as a whip.

“You really shouldn’t have, it’s such a wonderful thing.”

“I made it myself.”

Her guard officially drops, along with her jaw, if only for a moment before she straightens. “You did not.”

“I did too!” He almost seems offended, but more amusement than anything else comes through his voice and his face. She glares at him before smiling.

“Well, I guess we both made our weapons then.”

She sets a hand on the gun at her right and smiles to herself as he smirks. Thinking I’m too stupid to know guns don’t work on your kind are you? Her other hand snakes down her left hip; no one ever thinks the small, inconspicuous hilt at her left is anything interesting, it almost looks more like a small pack than a place to store a one of a kind weapon.

His smirk flees to settle on her lips when she pulls it free. “Draconian leather, no seeking magic, but I prefer pain and fire magic anyhow; I have more than enough skill to hit you on my own.”

The thing was a work of beauty, curved to settle in her hand perfectly, the leather curled like a whip to allow more control before being let free at the ends like a flogger, decorated with barbed wire.

“Damn.”

He smiles and steps forward, engaging her in a dance that leaves them bloody and exhilarated. His whip curls around her wrist and she smiles, letting him pull her close. He almost stops, noting her smile, but it’s too late at the small blade on the end of her hilt slips through his skin. He whines and pushes her back; his body shudders as the magic courses into him, the holy water inhibiting his ability to heal.

She smiles and strokes the small blade gently, tracing the symbols carved into it and relishing the feel of metal cured with holy water. “The barbs are made like this too.”

“Jesus, why are you working for a spoilt brat like this? You have more than enough skill to break through the glass ceiling, as it were, and join a Court guard.”

“I owe her a few favours. After this s**t, I think I’ve paid my due, though. I don’t owe her my life.” Gen shrugs and he steps forward again.

They end up on the floor, tangled up with her blade pressed to his throat and his claws digging into her chest. He smiles up at her lazily, almost purring, “I think I could get used to this.”

“Without the holy water blade?”

“Maybe with the holy water, not so much the magic.”

“You masochist!” She grins and shifts very slightly to press her knee against his favourite bits. “How masochistic, hm? How much do I get to hurt you before you get angry with me?”

He seems about to answer when the shriek of tearing fabric draws both their attentions away. Their original guest had returned.

The man underneath her struggles finally, gasping when he accidentally presses her blade into his own skin. “My lord I-“

“Save it!” The other roars and suddenly it’s Gen’s turn to gasp when he disappears from under her. She struggles to her feet to face this ‘lord.’ He doesn’t look like any of the lords she knew; maybe there’d been some upheaval while she was shackled to this backwater duchess.

He makes a move for her and she holds her hands up. “My lord! May I interest you in some tea before you kill her?”

He stares at her for a long time before actually shrugging and accepting. She hadn’t expected that to work. She beckons to Isolt, who stumbles to her feet and trails after the taller woman confusedly.

“Please, take a seat and rest a moment. We’ll be back in just a moment.” She smiles at him and he nods, settling himself on an overly plush sofa.

Once in the kitchen Isolt hisses into her ear, “What the f**k are you doing?”

“Testing a theory. If it works, we both live, if not, you die. It’s a win-win.” She hums and busies herself with the tea, ordering Isolt to find the little tea cookies she loves so much. The noble grumbles but does as she’s told.

Maybe it’d be more of a win if I let you die.

She’s so busy grumbling she doesn’t notice Gen making the tea with holy water. They return after a few moments with tea and tea cookies. She bows low, offering them to him. He inhales the cookies and then downs the tea in one gulp. He screams as it begins to burn his insides and she leaps forward, thrusting the blade she kept in her sleeve into his throat so far it goes through.

His shrieking morphs suddenly into a bloody gurgling and he slips off her blade to crumple onto the floor. She jumps back as he scrabbles for her ankles. She kicks at him irritably when his twitching ends.

“That all happened very quickly and was surprisingly easy.”

“You think?” Isolt growls, picking at her ruined dress. Gen sighs and shrugs, turning away from the crumpled body of the so called lord. The sudden sound of tearing fabric behind her signals the Blood Guards return. He looks at her, then at the corpse of his ‘lord’.

“I had a theory about your kind and how I could kill them. Never thought it would work. But I had one.” She says, turning to look at him.

“What was your theory?”

She grins at him, setting a hand on her hip. “Why, if you heard my scheming, shouldn’t you have some to help your lord?”

“Probably. What was your theory?” He steps forward, insistent.

“That he was stupid enough to actually drink the damn tea.”

He stares at her a minute before beginning to nod slowly in amused approval. She hums and gestures absently at his whip, left lying on the floor where she’d knocked it out of his hands just before they’d found the floor.

“I suppose you came to get your play toy back?”

“Among other things.”

“Other things?” She grins and Isolt makes another ‘ew’ face. She gets a kick to the shin for her troubles before the knight simply walks away, taking up the whip. “Like what?” Her curiosity gets the better of her, not for the first time.

“Like, how did you have the strength to shove a little blade all the way through his throat, considering the strength by species default difference thing?” He frowns and she makes a face, turning the weapon in her hands and staring it silently for a moment.

“I was hoping for something more interesting.” She shrugs and walks up to him, handing him his whip. “I’m not entirely human, that’s all. Boring, really. Me ‘n’ my brother, right little halfies.”

He rolls his eyes and takes it from her, seizing hold of her hand. Gen raises an eyebrow at him warningly but he takes no heed, simply pulling her close. “Come stay with me awhile, then. I could sponsor you and maybe get you into a Court guard.”

“And my human-y bits, how well will they be taken?” She raises her eyebrows at him again, amused and a little flattered.

“Just stay with me until our world prompts your demon-y bits to take over instead.” He seems so eager she’s half tempted to take him up on it. It’s flattering, really. Instead, she responds with her dry humour.

“Are you asking me to be your girlfriend, Mr. Blood Guard Demon sir?” Her voice is almost uncertain for a moment, and he wonders if she’s toying with him. She smiles at him and bats her eyelashes but he remains perfectly serious, holding her gaze steadily.

“If you want me to be.”

That shuts her up. She stares at him for a second before changing the subject. She turns to Isolt, and waves a hand at her. “My debt to you and your family is entirely repaid.  Seek your protection from someone else now.”

Isolt mumbles something, the shock starting to wear off now, she’s left staring at the blood draining from the ‘Demon Lord’. Her face has gone white while her eyes have grown to take over her face. She looks about to faint. Gen turns back to the man still holding her arm.

“Well?”

“What’s your name, Mr. Blood Guard Demon, sir?”

“Radik.” He takes a deep bow, flourishing his cloak behind him. He goes so far as to run his hand from her wrist to her hand to kiss the small golden band on her middle finger. A static shock passes from his lips to her finger.

She tilts her head and takes a sharp breath, considering the name, considering him, considering the electricity between them, though that could have been literal all things considered.

You’re deluding yourself.

She looks him over again, eventually shrugging. “I think I can at least live with you for a little while, until my demon-y bits take over and you get me into a Court guard of course.”

“Of course,” he replies smoothly, slipping an arm around her waist. She rolls her eyes and he smiles, twisting his wrist just so. She winces as that shriek of ripping fabric envelops her.

At the very least, this will be fun.

The thought passes through her mind fleetingly as darkness envelops them. She doesn’t realize how difficult her fun will be until the blackness surrounds them and begins to crush them and she remembers why she never travels between dimensions. She wants to scream, but he is laughing like a madman, as if he can’t feel the insane pressure.

“First time in the void?” He giggles, watching her choke. “Happens to the best of us!” He takes two steps, and, with another subtle twist of his wrist accompanied by the shrieking rip of fabric, they step from the crushing eternity of the void.

She is gasping and he is still laughing, both doubled over on the ground, if for very different reasons. The void definitely affects people in different ways.

 

Reviews

[Amelia May]

ok... so i just read this... and I want more. I want more of everything.
I was so caught up with reading that I only found one error through it all.
In this paragraph:
“Like, how did you have the strength to shove a little blade all the way through his throat, considering the strength by species default difference thing?” He frowns and she makes a face, turning the weapon in her hands and staring it silently for a moment.
At the very end it says "staring it silently for a moment" when it should say "staring AT it silently for a moment."
Just a little tidbit of editorial feedback to accompany you on your way through the amazing journey that this tale holds. I cannot wait for the next chapter. =)