"You're a fool to think that this creature is the one from the legends," the woman in red muttered, clutching her scarlet raincoat about her. Beside her, the woman in a black cloak said nothing, focusing only on walking down the block towards their destination, a club called 'Plaisir'. It was a cold March night in Paris, with a strong wind driving stinging, icy rain towards the west. The woman in red pulled up her hood, keeping it down with a clutching honey-skinned hand while her pale companion simply walked with no concern for the weather, her hair already quite damp. To no eyes could they be mistaken for sisters, but their heights were the same by dint of the woman in black's boots having a three inch heel and the woman in red's flats having none. By the time the entrance to the club splashed the street with neon reds and pinks, the bouncer was looking down at them through his shades, the lenses beaded with water. Without a word he opened the door for them, and the warm, humid atmosphere of the interior beckoned them inward.
Within the club pulsed like a beating heart. The decor was blood red veined in blacks and threads of gold. The lights swiveled over the misty dancefloor as indistinct figures writhed to industrial paens equally suitable to romance or butchering meat. To their right a bar glowing in bright and futuristic white lights displayed with sparkling clarity the libations available, and there was a more discrete menu for controlled substances, if one knew what it meant. The woman in red glanced longingly at the bar, but her companion drew her onward, a strong, slender hand on her muscled bicep forbidding her to delay them with her vices.
Deeper into the club, up on the second floor, the music could be felt through the walls rather than heard. Upstairs it was quieter, the lights dimmer, with several doors leading to balconies wherefrom to watch the revelers. Other doors led to private chambers, rentable by the hour, and one last door led to their destination. The woman in black took a plastic key card from her pocket and held it up to the sensor pad, itself damp, and the door's seals hissed, the locks slicking open with the perfect machining of a Swiss watch.
Within was a room forty feet long and twenty feet wide and all in white, lit brightly and without possibility of shadow. The glittering, moving eyes of cameras peered down at them from the ceiling from multiple angles, and the floor, ceiling, and all walls were a smooth white material shot through with geometric circuitry-like veins of gold, each bunch growing up from the floor to branch out in abundance along the flats of the walls like trees. Two black leather armchairs and one small table between them were placed before a clear glass wall, a clear barrier that bisected the room, and behind the wall was one more chair, and within it an elegant figure with eyes like rubies. Neither of them could tell if the figure was male or female, its outfit of gray slacks, black dress shoes, and a white blouse providing little by way of clues, but it obviously wasn't human.
The woman in red bristled while the woman in black expressed nothing, waiting and watching until the figure in the chair, on the other side of the glass wall, gestured to the two empty seats. Still the two women waited, and a screen emerged from the ceiling, displaying text as the figure in the chair typed it on a tablet with its slender fingers.
Welcome. Please take a seat.
Still bristling, the woman in red looked down at her shoes, which stood in a puddle of water on the floor, all slicked down from her raincoat. The woman in black narrowed her eyes, but began to move, her boots clicking on the hard floor slowly as she moved to the chair and then took a slow, tense seat in it.
You may communicate by using the tablet upon that table.
The woman in red now walked over, curious, but the woman in black picked up the tablet and turned it on. It provided a keyboard option or a touchpad option, and she elected the latter, using the attached stylus to write several figures in cuneiform. The woman in red wrinkled her nose, then looked through the glass wall as the woman in black sent the message.
The figure in the chair opposite them, slim, wavy black hair upon powder white skin, androgynous, femme, and beautiful, looked over at its own screen, then smiled. It shifted in its chair, leaning on its hip, draping a slender leg over the other at the knee, and plucked the stylus out from the side of its tablet to write a response, which showed up on the screen of the two women.
The woman in black looked at it thoughtfully until the woman in red took a step forward, her right hand on the back of her still empty chair. "What does it say?"
The woman in black took in a slow breath, her skin lifting from sickeningly grayish pale to a soft pink, her lips filling and her eyes clearing from cataracts to a dark brown. "It is the answer to the riddle I asked it, in Sumerian."
The creature continued to smile gently at them through the glass, and the woman in red finally took a cautious seat, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. She held her hand out for the tablet and was granted it, opting for the keyboard.
What's with the setup?
The creature typed back What separates us is a panel of soundproof glass. For your comfort.
The woman in red wrinkled her nose, muttering. "That's bullshit." The creature pouted slightly. She shook her head, folding her arms across her chest so that the rubber of her raincoat squeaked. Beyond the glass, the creature inclined its head and typed a few commands into its tablet, and up from the floor rose two pedestals in white, one on either side of the clear barrier. Upon each pedestal was a crystal wine glass. Before the woman in red could finish typing her question, the creature took in a deep breath and opened its mouth in the direction of its wine glass, which began to vibrate violently. The wine glass on the women's side of the wall remained still and unaffected, even when the other one exploded silently into fragments, the stem tumbling from the pedestal to the floor without a sound that they could hear. The creature closed its mouth and waited, taking up a copper cup of water from a small side table nearby. It sipped from it while watching them visibly relax, and the woman in black took back the tablet and began to type on it.
Your facility is impressive, and we appreciate the measures taken for our comfort.
You are most welcome.
We have been in email communication with you. I trust that you understand who we are.
You are the Lady of the Great Earth and your companion is the Powerful One. I have heard of you.
You know why we are here, then.
I can't begin to guess.
The woman in red snarled softly, but the woman in black remained unphased. Long moments passed until the woman in red turned to her companion and scowled. "This is a complete waste of time. Clearly this thing isn't going to help us. These games are infuriating. If they go on a moment longer I am leaving this place!"
Behind the glass the beautiful creature sat quietly, tablet in its lap, and watched the woman in black in particular. She was deep in thought, and as her brows began to furrow the thing behind the glass smiled gently. When the woman looked up into those ruby eyes, the creature inclined its head, encouraging her to continue with her ruminations. Her gaze sank to the floor, then moved over to her companion's shoes, still resting in a puddle of water.
"It is not a waste of time..." she finally said after another pinkening breath, lifting her gaze back to the creature behind the glass. "The glass does nothing."
The creature sat quietly, delighted, its smile showing perfect teeth.
The woman in red looked confused, and the woman in black frowned, typing.
There was no forecast for rain at the hour of our meeting. How many times have we been here?
Now her companion began to understand, and she stood up from her chair tensely. Her fingers flexed, the thick knuckles at the end of each digit slowly splitting open at the tops as black, curved talons pushed out of them over their more human counterparts.
Fourteen.
"What does it mean?" the woman in red growled, fangs growing in among her normal dentition, her lips darkening to a shiny black.
Her companion remained in her chair, slowly inhaling. "It means that we have had this meeting fourteen times."
Black talons clicked together, and the woman in red sniffed with derision. "Impossible, I would have remembered."
"Not if you were commanded to forget."
"No! No one commands me!" the woman in red roared.
I do.
With another roar, the woman in red lunged forward and struck the glass, her talons digging screaming trenches into the crystal, lifting a scintillating dust in their wake.
The woman in black remained unaffected, and took up the tablet again.
We have come through the club fourteen times tonight?
Yes.
The screen with the text changed to a video feed divided into fourteen frames, each dated and time stamped. In each one, the two women walked in from the street passed the same bouncer, the woman in red lingered by the bar, and the woman in black pulled her along. Each frame showed the women taking their seats and carrying on a text conversation with the beautiful creature behind the glass. Fourteen times it broke the wine glass with its voice.
When will you tire of this? How many more times will we come to see you?
The creature tilted its head and typed on its tablet.
When you decide to make me stop.
When it lifted its head, it frowned at the woman in black. The woman in red grunted and turned to look, her golden eyes widening as she saw the slumped body seated in the chair looked like a cadaver. Beyond the glass barrier, the creature seated in the chair blinked, then arched, its tablet falling to the floor in silence. The woman in red watched in fascination as an ephemeral wraith manifested behind the chair, its fist buried into the back of the creature's chest and pulling. Slowly, reluctantly, the ephemeral form of the beautiful creature lifted from its body, its fingers clinging to its own flesh. The beautiful body twitched, the head wrenched back, the ruby eyes glassy and staring up at the ceiling, but really at nothing, and behind the glass the two wraiths held a conversation beyond hearing. At long last the wraith of the creature nodded, and the wraith of the woman in black inclined her head and released it, whereupon the creature's body jerked, the spirit sinking back into the flesh fully once more.
Back on her side of the room, the woman in red saw the cadaver seated in the chair twitch as the second wraith disappeared from beyond the glass, and slowly the woman in black opened her eyes and drew in a slow, vivifying breath. "Will you help us?"
Beyond the glass, the creature slowly collected itself and rose from the chair, looking discomfited and sore. It inclined its head briefly, recovering its dignity before it smiled again. Very slowly its pale dermis darkened to a shadowed black, and ebony scales grew in over its skin, gleaming from the overhead lights. Behind it, through subtle slits in its shirt, large, black feathered wings grew in and spread, their span nearly the width of the room itself. The creature's ruby eyes glowed like glowing coals, and its fingertips sprouted long, black claws, its hands held out, palms up in generous supplication. Its voice slithered into their minds, smooth like silk, comforting and intimate, the thing's smile uncomfortably palpable deep within them.
I will.
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