Little Black Wings
Wow, didn't THIS take a long time to get out. Though, I hadn't planned on switching jobs in the middle of it either. Still not done with the second part, but I should be able to finish it up in the next day or two.
Hope you read and enjoy! :)
Warning! This story is filled with angst, self-introspection, and a few VERY obscure references. You've been warned.
***
Little Black Wings
By
Joshua Trujillo
A Story From HappyPure
Part 1 :
The motor of the little convertible flared to life as Crazie gunned it once more. She giggled in delight as Peace and Love Incorporated blared from the Blaupunkt speakers.
"You know," Mythos growled from the back seat. "My MG is just as happy going the speed limit as it is flat out."
"Live a little!" Loki, currently in his geisha form, laughed from the passenger seat.
"Yeah," Crazie giggled again. "For a being as old as you are, you need to lighten up!"
Mythos showed her she was number one.
"To be honest," Gerald, sharing the backseat with Mythos, began. "I'm quite happy with a slower vehicle too."
Crazie hit the gas again as they sped through the Carolinian night. She glanced in the rear view mirror and brought it back down as she turned the radio down.
"Better, old man?"
"Old squid, thanks."
Crazie stuck her tongue out at him and turned to Loki.
"What made you want to come out this time?"
Loki smoothed the skirt of her kimono dress and blushed slightly, "There's a person I've been talking to and she said she'd be there tonight."
They all perked up.
"Oh?" Gerald smiled. "Anyone we might know?"
"The circles we run in are vast and varied, ya know?" Mythos chuckled. "But still, I'm glad both of you decided to come out with Crazie and I. Not that I mind her company, but her friends there like to toss greek sauce at me."
"That was one time, dammit!" Crazie huffed.
"At least it's not rice and nori," Gerald nudged Mythos, who nodded.
Mythos sat back in his seat and thought a little. He began to wonder, not for the first time, about Crazie. Here she was, going with him to The Vault for the past month, and her ship being done and ready. He'd done the mass trajectories and power comsumption data himself. She had been ready to leave for over two weeks and yet she remained. She also evaded the subject when he had asked her about it, which really hadn't been like her. She wasn't the type to evade. She was the type to storm the castle walls and paint graffiti on the helmets of the tower guard.
The countryside pulled away and the urban sprawl creeped around him as they came into the city. There was a good Goth club on the other side of the town, but there was something special about The Vault. Mythos knew the owners personally and had donated a bit to keep them afloat in rough times, a number of years back. They never forgot it and remained close friends, so, revealing his true form to them had taken a bit of courage on both their parts. When they accepted him, embraced him...did things to him...and they hadn't cared what he looked like or indeed what species he was, he knew they were special. And he had boatloads of cash. It wasn't like he hadn't been there for the start of banking and knew where to get the money or anything. Crazie swung the MG around the corner and there it was. Looming like a black tombstone out of the middle of an industrial complex, the old factory of The Vault sat like God's own footstool. It had been built in the 1920's as a cotton and textile factory, originally, though it'd gone through a number of transformations over the years, but the space came cheap and large, which is what Claire and Damon needed for The Vault.
A large, black and above all, opaque fence line stretched all around the parking lot as they pulled in. A security guard looked at Crazie's ID as she whipped it out. Loki said something about whipping it out and had to be reminded of his current form, which would make whipping anything out quite difficult. The guard, bored by the whole ordeal, waved them inside. Vehicles of all types sat inside, from Hummers and Alfa Romeos to Hondas and POS Fords.
"Oh great," Mythos pointed out toward the west end of the lot. "Steampunk Jimmy is here."
A black Model-T sat off by itself.
"Something wrong with him?" Gerald asked as he got out.
"He's an okay guy," Crazie began. "But don't touch him. His gears can rip a finger clean off."
"Or tentacle," Mythos growled.
"Bet that makes oral sex problematic," Loki chortled.
"Oh yeah," Crazie laughed. "You'll fit in here just fine."
The door set black, heavy and nondescript into the side of the brick structure and Mythos opened it, holding it open for the others to enter. A single naked bulb burned in the long hallway, the strains of heavy bass muted heavily in the background. A person in a black gas mask leaned out over the counter to look at Loki and Gerald, but noticed Mythos and began stroking the top of his latex covered head excitedly.
"Henry," Mythos waved. "These are friends of mine, Gerald and Loki. Of course you know Crazie."
Henry, the man in latex, wiped his hand together as Crazie proffered a black gloved hand of her own. He reached out gingerly, but winced in pain as a riding crop smacked him on the back of his head from the darkness behind him. He whimpered and slunk off as a large woman came forward. She wore a red leather corset and black leather gloves. Gerald couldn't see much else, but the hunger she levied in his direction made his skull sweat.
"Angie-" Crazie began, but stopped and cowered at the snap of the riding crop. "Mistress Margaurite. Henry was being a good boy."
"I told him not to touch any person for one whole day, Crazie," Angie ne Magaurite waggled her crop. "He simply must learn! But go on in, hon. Talon and the others are already here. Oh, and Mythos? Lady Esmerelda is here too."
Angie smirked as Mythos closed his eyes and shook his head. Mythos motioned Loki and Gerald down the tight hallway to the entrance door beyond.
"Problem with this Esmerelda, Myth?" Loki asked softly.
"You have no idea."
Crazie giggled at him as she opened the door. Waves of Crash from Mesh hit them as they stepped into the main atrium, vaulted stone arches leapt overhead on massive pillars, giving one the impression of a gothic cathedral. Gerald had seen this kind of work in his mortal life, before he had come to the New World, but with new materials, this work seemed lighter, more stylized. Probably because it was. Damon and Claire had been to Europe and had seen the gothic spans of stone there, but they'd also seen the later Renaissance works that were mroe designed to bring the viewer to awe, instead of fear. Gerald could see the combinations and smiled to himself. A melting pot, just like the New World had ever been. To one side, a full bar had been set up, though Gerald noted no alcohol on the shelves behind the bar. A great many dispensers and refrigerated units, but no alcohol. Interesting...
Beyond the atrium, the floor plan levelled out into the massive, three tiered space of the main complex. Struts and gangways spanned the great space above, supporting what looked to be whole room and hallways hanging over empty space. Balconeys and barred stages jutted out into the air, where humans of all shapes and sizes danced and ground against each other-
Myth pointed to a point two floors up where it looked like much more than dancing went on. Gerald felt his skull heat up as he watched them and jumped slightly as Crazie gently pulled him toward a table near a large stage near the back. The whole place had been painted a rather bland, industrial black that Gerald had only seen in theaters of the community nature. Indeed, there was a smell, which he had the tact on which not to comment, that struck him as they arranged themselves at the table. Not that it was an unagreeable smell, quite the contrary. It smelled like hormones and sweat and entropic excitement. A smell he hadn't found in years and quite suddenly realized he had missed it. The lights spun and circled. For a moment, nausea circled around a stomach that didn't exist, but went away as Crazie set a drink before him. Mythos tapped him and then tapped the side of his head. He and Loki both nodded. Crazie knocked on the table and pointed to herself. Mythos nodded and smiled.
Okay, ladies and gentlemen and Loki-, he began as he spoke directly into their minds.
Loki pointed a finger at him and he smirked.
The Vault, as you can see around you, he continued. Used to be an old factory, back in the day, as it were. It was Damon's idea to open the whole thing up and build virtually a see through club, but don't worry. The floors above are incredibly strong and stable. The various rooms are mostly blank, with some accessories that people can use during play and scenes. What seperates The Vault from other clubs is the amount of specific rooms used for play.
And the stages? Loki asked.
Yeah, Mythos nodded. Not many clubs have those either, but Damon and Claire's clientelle is many and varied. Anyway, there are rooms like the White Room, which is decked out like an office, in my opinion, but white walls and white lights and a big ol' white cross.
Even the handcuffs on the cross are padded in white, Crazie chuckled to herself.
Mythos snickered and nodded his head as the other two looked at her.
What?
Anyway, there's the Glass House, the Hall of Mirrors, the Pit and others, Mythos took another drink. I gave them a financial push near the beginning. Nothing big, mind you and they repaid me in full. Just something to get them going. They've done quite well. I hear that they have a whole bus load of people coming in from Tennessee next week. That should be interesting-ohshit!.
A whiplike cord spun out of the darkness and twined itself around Mythos' head, wrapping neatly around his eyes like a blindfold. Twirled on the end, Gerald thought he saw a glow stick, but couldn't tell as Mythos had been yanked into the darkness by it. Gerald turned to Loki, who had a wide grin on her face.
"I like it!" she said.
"There's so much...humanity," Gerald replied. "I can see why Myth likes it."
The night spread before them, full of promise and boobies. Loki had been approached by two men dressed in black leather and, as far as Gerald could tell, all together too much shiny metal. She giggled and they fawned and off she went. Crazie had come back and had introduced Gerald to several of her friends, including a Lord Talon. Gerald didn't comment, but rather thought it was for the hook of his nose than the long, metal encased fingers. He sat alone, enjoying the scenery, when a volumptuous woman sat next to him.
"You're one of Mythos' friends, aren't you?" she asked in a quiet patch of the ever-present music.
Gerald nodded, trying not to note the amount of cleavage pointed in his direction, or how much he kind of liked it.
"My name is Mistress Sandra," she rubbed an errant finger across the back of Gerald's skull. "Mythos came and told me that you were looking for something different. That you needed a good education."
"Madam, I happen to know a great many more things-"
"I'm sure you do," she said, an evil glint in her eye. "But interrupt me again, and I shall teach you more than you can handle. Mythos wanted you to have a good time. He's a good boy and I owe him one."
Her arms were gloved in latex or rubber or something of a similar nature. She idlly rubbed her finger across the back of his skull again and Gerald thought he might have heard a purr.
"So...what have you in mind?"
An open, engaging smile met him in return. She leaned closer and whispered something. He had to admit...the prospect intruiged him. He thought that, perhaps, it might be too much for the first time. But maybe not.
"Okay," he nodded as she got up. "Why the Hell not?"
***
Smoke rose happily from the top of Mythos' head as he sat at the booth near the bar. Gloria had whipped him into the darkness and had ended up monopolizing him for nearly two whole hours. Not that he really minded, but still, she hadn't needed to use force. At least it hadn't been Esmerelda. That bitch could go frenzy on a guy in a hurry and where was the fun in that? The most that Gloria wanted was a little face time with the calamari. Or, he supposed in his case, a lot of face time. He shook his head and sipped his Glenfiddich. That girl needed a hobby.
He sat back and enjoyed the single-malt with as much aplomb as he could, considering he couldn't feel three fingers on one hand and two of his tentacles. But no matter. Gloria was happy. That was always what mattered to him. He knew Gerald had began with an attendance to Mistress Sandra's House of Flogging. Mythos thought his friend must have handled it well, as he'd been told that Gerald continued to attend the other classes that were held almost constantly. It had occurred to him that Gerald would be more interested in the nuances of the lifestyle rather than the overall effect of it. Certainly, pleasure for pleasure, but hedonism had never been his style. Information and knowledge had been.
Unfortunately for Mythos, his regulars hadn't seemed to have arrived. Maybe Gloria knew that and therefore had been afforded some extra time. He shrugged and mentally sent another tap to the bartender. Mythos always loved the single-malt for right after a scene, but normally drank something a little lighter for the social part of the drinking. Drinking had become an interesting part of the social dynamic in The Vault. Have a beer? You were marked as something of a frat boy parading for some easy play, or worse, a poser who knew no better. Now, Guiness or good microbrew (though Mythos thought they all tasted like weak dog water), that got you some looks. Not much more, since it still happened to be beer, but at least you had your head on straight and might have more than two brain cells. Straight alcohol was always a safe bet, though not too much. Wouldn't want to become a drunk. Mythos' Glenfiddich had been the choice of the steampunk crowd for a long time. The Goth kids still preferred their vodka or, for the ones on vacation, gin. Sometimes with tonic, sometimes without. The serious Emo kids were all about the cheap whiskey. Or 151. Something to kill as many brain cells as possible as quickly as possible.
Gary, the steampunk bartender, clanked slightly as he set a Long Island in front of Mythos, who popped another gold coin on the table. Gary whislted and beeped as he took the little shiny disk and motored back behind the bar. The Vault had become one of the very few places where Mythos could actually spend the gold he had. Other places looked at him funny. The tea? It said that you either were strong enough to cover your own ass or that you simply didn't give a flying teabag what other people thought. For Mythos, it was a mix of the two. He took a sip and smacked some mouth parts in enjoyment. Something had been tickling his senses ever since he'd sat down. He'd thought it had been the numbness, but no, it was something...
He looked down to the end of the bar and, yes, there it was. Small girl, black hair. Emo? Possibly, but she lacked the pasty white antipathy that most of the cutters wore so gracelessly. Mythos smirked to himself and stood. He gathered his drink and made his way quietly to her, taking in more details. Floofy dress, a black petticoat or sets of black petticoats, lace corset and pigtails tied in ribbons and- oh yes, there was the kicker. Striped tights with heavy boots. Loligoth. He almost turned around for his booth, but the girl turned. She looked entirely uncomfortable sitting there. Certainly not a regular or even someone comfortable with those clothes. That said...he sighed. It said that he had been overthinking things. Normally, he would have been more concerned about breaking out in a flop-sweat from the tension that meeting a new girl, or really any girl, would give him. The quick scene with Gloria and the alcohol, however, did wonders to his confidence. He shrugged and continued on to her seat at the bar.
"Hey there!"
She turned to him and he saw the scathing retort die on her lips as she tried to process the information her eyes had fed to her. His real form had always been an ice-breaker. Of course, his real form had been a mind breaker too, but that's why he never used it. The girl recovered nicely.
"Um, hi," she half-smiled.
She nodded and turned back around, searching the crowd again. Mythos smirked to himself again. Hmmm...black lipstick too...
"Don't know many people who are stand-offish in here," he said. "It's more of an extrovert crowd, by nature. So what's your deal?"
"Maybe I'm waiting for someone," she said without turning around as she tried to hide her own smirk.
"Waiting?" Mythos croaked. "Found someone you have!"
He cracked a goofy smile and she openly smiled as she shook her head.
"Okay, bad line," he took a sip of his tea. "Are you waiting for someone?"
Her smile faded, only to be replaced by something a tad more sour. Mythos had seen that look before.
"Yeah. From an hour ago," she sighed. "Looks like I got stuck waiting for him."
Mythos thought about headdiving to get the information, but there was something about this girl that calmed and excited him. Not the clothes...the hair? Looking closer, it wasn't truly black or dyed. The lights made the true color of any hair hard to tell. She turned back to the bar as Gary set another beer in front of her. She smiled at him. Her eyes laughed a little as she glanced at Mythos. He shook his head and sipped his tea again. He hadn't realized he had been staring.
"This person you're waiting for," he began. "Is a regular?"
"Yeah, he says he is," she sighed. "Name's John Rubies. Why? You know'm?"
Mythos darkened slightly as he thought of Rubies. The name brought his blood pressure up.
"Hey!" she set a hand at his shoulder. "You do know him, don't you?"
Mythos shivered at her touch and nodded his head solemnly.
"He's here too," he reached back and set his tea on the bar before he broke it.
"No," she smiled and shook her head. "He can't be here. I've been watching that door all night!"
She pointed...and Mythos' heart sank.
"He told you to watch the one by the cages?"
She nodded.
"It's the side door," he said. "That's for employees and he's certainly not one."
A haunted look passed over her face before she closed in on herself. Mythos ground his beak together. He wished he hadn't seen the bastard earlier in the evening, but Gloria liked the stages that overlooked the main stage from three levels up. It afforded a voyeuristic privacy that couldn't be matched elsewhere in the club. He'd seen exactly where he'd gone. Plus, he knew the bastard.
"You know where he is too, don't you?"
He'd heard that voice in other women before too and how it made his blood burn for blood. Mythos reined himself in and nodded.
"Will you take me to him?"
"I can show you where he is," he said almost quietly. "But I doubt he'll want to talk to either of us."
"Maybe it's enough for me to believe you," she said barely above the music.
Her pigtails had fallen forward, scantly covering her face. Her dark eyes almost ready to burst as she reached out and touched his arm pleadingly. All the anger drained from him as this girl tugged on his arm. This girl whose only sin was perhaps not having enough insight on her choice of romantic interests. He sighed again and hopped off the seat. She looked down at him and took his proffered hand. He hated to do it, but it had been her request, after all.
Back out into the din of the club, Mythos led the girl to a spiral staircase set along the left side. Wide metal stairs led upward, each stair adorned with a single rock. The metaphor had never been lost on him, but he hoped that, at least tonight, she wouldn't take it literally. The staircase opened up to a large dance floor where many bodies in various states of clothing bumped and ground to the din of some good old fashioned Nine Inch Nails, leaving each other little imagination as to the events of the rest of the night. The girl continued to follow Mythos to the edge of the balconey. Large, wrought iron posts not only served to anchor the mass above the floor below, but led to a voyeuristic feel look across the chasm to the Glass House. Really, only bits of it were truly glass. Most was plexiglass and laminated or tempered glass, the kind of stuff that's used in high rise buildings. He had hoped that, when he'd led her to the edge of the balconey, that the House would be empty and...no such luck.
There he was, a blonde on either side of him. Rubies had taken care of himself, certainly, but it was his arrogance that many women cited as why they were interested and, eventually, why they couldn't stand the sight of him anymore. He looked good in the mirror and, for a great many women, that's really all that mattered. Mythos looked again and snorted. One of the blondes was Esmerelda. He smirked to himself. They deserved each other. He turned the girl, but she had taken off. Mythos caught sight of her heading down the staircase and he swam through the crowd back to the balconey. Her tears were the only thing that followed her outside.
A growl began low inside him, one he hadn't felt in a long time and one that he hadn't thought he'd ever feel. That son of a bitch! Mythos finally realized the thing about the girl that he had liked. Her innocence. An almost palpable, tangible presence of true innocence. Not naivete or stupidity, but...innocence. A seething anger caught him as he looked back up to the Glass House. She hadn't deserved that and while it had been partially his fault, John would soon get the blunt end of the fuck stick. Tonight would not end well for him.
***
Mythos looked to the pile of fruit on his desk as he packed away his notes. He had told his students, who seemed to be fond of giving him apples, that an assortment of fruit would be more conducive to his favor. He had honestly expected that not one of his students would understand, but apparently this class seemed brighter than most. Part of him took a little shivery excitement in thinking that it had been his skill as a professor. Even if it wasn't, he'd still take the compliment in thinking it was. He taught two classes in a row in this same damned classroom, before heading over to Unbacher Hall for the last class, which, naturally, lay on the other side of the campus and farthest from his MG. He reached for a banana, peeled it back and stuck it in his mouth as he continued to pack. Having his own room, for all his classes...ah, but what a dream. A snippet of conversation from the hall caught his attention.
"...and then he stuck the guy's head up his ass!" one girl laughed.
"No! I know him! His head wouldn't fit!"
"I'm serious," the first claimed. "The ambulance had to be called and everything. It was the weirdest thing..."
Mythos chuckled to himself as he finished his banana. He'll live. Somewhat. He lifted the rest of the fruit and shoveled them into a side dimension. They would keep there. He set his beret on his head and stepped out into the hallway. Ochre, babyshit colored paint splayed up the high walls to a dirty cream on the ceiling, the floors tiled with alternating pea green and gray vinyl tiles. The dirty cream colored radiator on the far wall pumped and chugged through a cycle. Mythos sighed inwardly. University Hall was such a depressing place. Not conducive to learning at all. Of course, the desks made to fit third-graders hadn't helped much either. Mythos turned the corner, pushed open the doors to the stairs and made his way down. Students trucked up the stairs or, in the case of the couple on the second floor landing, made out on the stairs. He thought for a minute about making an example of them, but he hadn't any popcorn and today didn't seem to be the time for a spectator sport, for some reason. He settled on clearing his throat as he went past. They broke their amorous tonguelock with a modicrum of giggles and sorry's. Mythos smiled and continued down.
Warm spring air assailed him as he stepped outside. Mythos took a deep breath, letting the lavender and lilac scents wash over him. He smiled broadly as a tall blonde roller bladed past him. Ostentiably, what she wore could be called work out attire. He thought of it more like advertisement. Especially the college name across the butt of her tiny shorts. Classy. But still, he wouldn't ever complain. That's what spring begat in a college town. Even in the South, where temperatures never got overly cold. And yet, three months of covering up what they worked so hard to show off seemed like an intermitable long amount of time.
He set off leisurely. The sun dappled through the trees across the quad, creating lakes and eddies of light and shadow, where the student body could play and, well, spawn. Mythos said his hellos to students in his class or ones past. He remembered them all, even if they hadn't wanted to remember him. His class had never been easy. In fact, he considered himself one of the hardest grades in the non science classes, but he never made his classes boring. After all, he had a derth of knowledge in the field of ancient history, having lived in it. He never taught Intelligent Design because, after all, who would believe that he had been the intelligent designer? Unbacher Hall loomed, looking nothing so much like the Flatiron building, but with more points. A generalized Math / Sci building, it also held-
Mythos stopped as a sense overtook him. Someone watched him. Not from very far either. He dropped a book and let that be the impetus for the pause in his stride. He absently shovelled around his armload and picked the book off the ground. Behind and to his left. It felt like a kind of predator? Stalking...something waiting to pounce. It evoked no fear in him. Truly, if he wanted, what on Earth could stop him? But still, he didn't want to get molested on his way to class. He straightened and hurried into the hall. He cut to his right just on the other side of the door and got up the stairs. He turned again and hurried out onto the second floor.
An atrium spanned the second floor, a large triangle with a nicely geometric model spinning lazily in the center, reaching almost to the floor below. Mythos made his way calmly along one side and peered over the edge to the door. A girl ran in and stopped just inside the carpeted area leading to the grand staircase directly across from the door. Her dark, almost purple hair gathered into a single ponytail flung back and forth as she looked around. She wore a plain tshirt and blue jeans, though Mythos could see her black fingernails and pale skin from up here. She hesitated, then backed slowly out of the building. Mythos looked up and made his way to a window along the point and watched as the girl looked all around. She set her backpack at her shoulder and, with a final look over her shoulder, made her way out of sight.
Why? She was obviously on the look out for him and she'd obviously seen him. Not just the disguise that he'd stretched into reality over himself, but the real him! The one with tentacles and green skin that she'd met two nights ago at the club. But how? Even the students he'd known were at the Vault couldn't see through his disguise. It was flawless. He'd spent thousands of years making it so. He'd have to get Gerald to look into it. He wasn't about to get caught with his pants down.
...not that he wore pants...
...but metaphorically...
***
Mythos looked to his right and left at the eyestalks on either side of him. They blinked every now and again.
"You can stop twitching," Gerald said across the room. "I told you they weren't alive."
"Then why make them look like they're alive?"
Gerald turned, his monocle flipping into place, "Kicks."
"I'm gonna kick you if you don't get this damned scan completed."
"Hold your face on," Gerald snorted as he turned back. "It's almost done."
Mythos rolled his eyes and waited until a little ding sounded somewhere behind him.
"Does that mean I'm done?"
Gerald glanced at him and back at his viewscreen, "Ya know, everything looks intact. You said she was the girl you helped at the club?"
Mythos nodded.
"This the one-"
"With the head," Mythos smirked. "Yeah."
He paused for a second, "Has she found out?"
"I could hardly think she wouldn't have found out," Mythos shrugged. "What with how quickly news travels in this town. I don't know though, I kinda lost track-"
A knock resounded from the top of the stairs.
"Dr. Abbadon?" Crazie called out. "You have a visitor."
Mythos and Gerald exchanged glances, but Mythos shook his head.
"Gerald and I are a little busy-"
"She's insisting on seeing you." Crazie sounded a little more insistent. "Says it's for a class."
Mythos snorted.
"My students can get a little pushy," he shrugged and walked out of the conjuring circle. "I'd better head up and deal with this one."
"You give them our home address?"
Mythos smirked, "Why not? What, exactly, are they gonna see?"
"Well," Gerald took his monocle off. "If they're like this girl of yours, apparently they see it all, dumbass!"
Mythos rankled a bit, but waved him off and headed upstairs. One person, one female in how many thousands that he'd taught in the last eighteen years at the university? One female in the last eight million years? Well, no. There had been others. Exceptional women and women only, as far as he knew. He supposed, with the way genetics worked out, that at least one man would pop up there, but Mythos had never met him. But the last female had been in the Rennaisance courts of Italy, a hundred years after the plague. He smirked to himself as he let his disguise flow over him. Those had been some days. Mythos topped the stairs and turned to the livingroom.
"So, how can I help-"
The girl stood there. Different shirt, black jeans, but same nails, pale skin and big brown eyes. Eyes that he could get lost in. And for Mythos, getting lost somewhere like that said something...
She also looked right at him. Not at his disguise, but right at him and, even though he hadn't ever worn pants, Mythos thought he couldn't feel more naked.
***
As so often happened in the house, for meetings and the like, they gathered once again around the large, round kitchen table. Loki happily sat next to this new girl that seemed to have Myth's number. Gerald fiddled with a little device that looked like an iPod had sex with a Rube Goldberg blender. Crazie passed the new girl a root beer and sat next to Mythos, who chewed on the cap of a Vitamin water, in between sips. Her name was Tracey Wilkins and apparently she was very good at finding people. She found Mythos.
"I have to admit, I never thought I'd see you again," Tracey said, after a drink of her rootbeer. "Or, for that fact, that you're real."
"I want to know how you can see past his illusion," Gerald muttered without looking up.
"Oh, I've always seen ghosts and little critters out in the woods around my old home. I grew up thinking that everyone could see them," she explained. "Made me wonder when I found out that it was only me."
Mythos spat out the lid and took a drink.
"It's called resonance," he said.
"Like, she's in tune with you?" Crazie asked.
"Mm, not just with me," he shook his head. "Probably the whole damned spirit world. She's sees things for what they are, no matter the illusion."
Tracey stopped at this and her cute brow furled.
"But..." she began slowly, "You didn't use illusions when you were at the club."
"It's the one place where looking like a tentacled monster is actually helpful," Crazie smirked.
"The chicks dig it," Mythos nodded.
"Guys dig it too," she nudged Mythos. "From what I hear."
Mythos let out a low growl and scowled.
"I heard something about a Doberman Pinscher..." Loki asked.
"Parker has no proof I did anything to that damned dog," Mythos pointed angrily. "So knock it off!"
Tracey put a hand to her chest as a bright peel of laughter burst from her. Mythos tried to glare at her, but somewhere in his hindbrain, a little resonance of his own rippled and disturbed deep waters. He sat back down and groused as Tracey wiped tears.
"Oh god," she settled. "I haven't laughed like that since I moved down here."
"We noticed that you really don't have a Carolinian accent," Gerald mused. "You're from Ohio, aren't you?"
"Yup!" she nodded happily. "When my parents finally passed away, I was left to pretty much fend for myself and I'd had enough of snow. I'd been talking a friend of mine from down here and so, I moved."
"Finally?" Loki asked.
"Yeah," she said sadly. "They were both in a car wreck. Both of them left comatose and the doctors said there was no chance. Fortunately, I was eighteen already and I could take care of myself, but I still miss them horribly."
The four of them nodded in unison.
"They always had one wish, something dad would talk to me about," Tracey continued. "He wanted me to get my education, whether that be college or tech school or something. Even though we were pretty set, it was still important to him, so that was the second bit of moving down here."
"And the goth?" Loki asked.
She smirked, "You try being cheery in this world."
"She's got a point there," Mythos finished his drink.
"Still, you can't be gloomy all the time," Crazie mused, her head resting on her hand. "What about finding a guy-"
"-or girl!" Gerald cut in.
Mythos sniggered.
"...or girl?"
A cloud fell over Tracey's face, one that pulled at Mythos.
"I thought I had found one."
An uncomfortable silence fell around the group, punctuated by a snort from Tracey.
"By the way," she asked as she turned to Mythos. "How did you get him to bend so that his head went up his own ass?"
Gerald snorted.
"Magic does wonders."
"Oh, I don't believe in magic," Tracey said automatically. "Only in technology that's far ahead of me."
A glance passed between the four of them at the table. Gerald smiled slightly.
"You're right in some parts of that," he began slowly. "Loki and I are way ahead of most humans. Crazie is ahead simply because she's not human...but Myth..."
Mythos looked away and shook his head in disgust as apparently he'd soured to the topic.
"I'm..." he stumbled. "I'm only ahead because I'm so damned old."
Crazie sighed and rubbed her head.
"Same old, same old," she said.
Mythos stuck his tongue out at her.
"Listen, Tracey," Crazie said as she tried to ignore the faces Mythos made at her. "If you want to come over and hang out or whatever, you're very welcome."
Gerald and Loki nodded happily and, even though he angrily ignored most of them, he nodded as well. He got up from the table and made his way outside. He sighed. He supposed it would always come down to age. He was the oldest one in any room, save for rooms that included galaxies and stars. The burny gas kind of stars, not the Paris Hilton kind. Though he wouldn't mind bringing those two kinds together. At least then she could use her famous catch-phrase. Briefly.
He could see the ocean today, out there beyond the pines. Gerald had chosen the hillside well for it's view and for the property values, which had tanked in most places, but had kept well here. Mythos supposed it was what happened when you had a place for four hundred years. After all, he'd had R'yleh for nearly seven million years. Ever since he'd lost his palace in the Antarctic to the Mi-Go. Damned 'shrooms. R'yleh was beach front property in the Pacific. Nevermind that it sunk every hundred thousand years or so, you could still get a hundred generations use out of it! Mythos sighed again.
He liked watching the ocean, especially as the sun set behind the house. It cast shadows to the clouds out at sea, reds and purples, casting to lighter shades higher up. He could remember sitting and seeing this sunset all over the world through the eyes of humans since they had eyes to watch. Never had any of them suspected Mythos riding their minds and just watching the sunset. True, it was the eastern edge of the sunset, but he prefered to get a jump on things. Time passed this way, as it had passed when he had slept. Down there, it had been almost intermitable. A couple million years asleep and then what happens? His pet experiment becomes sentient and begins to dream. Mythos hadn't bothered much with humans since he'd scared those first monkeys out of their tree. That had been a fun day.
He shook himself out of his revelry as the door opened beside him.
"Well, I have to head out," Tracey said from inside. "Got class tomorrow and still have to put up a prospectus about a couple articles I haven't read."
She turned and stopped at the little squid sitting on the bench to one side of the porch. He looked over at her and smiled absently.
"You have fun sitting out here all by your lonesome?" she asked. "You've been out here quite a while."
"Really?"
Mythos reached into a small side dimension and pulled out his pocket watch. Sure enough, the time read that he'd been outside nearly four hours.
"Wow," he said as he put the watch back. "My mind wanders sometimes."
"...you okay?"
Mythos sighed and stretched.
"Yeah," he said as he got up. "You?"
She smiled warmly and nodded.
"I will be, I think."
A silence passed between them as they tried to think of something to say. And why, exactly, it felt awkward between them. Both began to speak and stopped. The shared a chuckle. A little color rose in Tracey's face. She coughed.
"Thank you. For helping me with John," she said. "It meant a lot to me, though, I think perhaps a talking to might have saved the medical bills."
"Don't you worry about any of that," Mythos waved a hand. "Besides, why do you think I knew where he was? I've dealt with him before."
"...other...girls? I mean, you've-"
He looked at her questioningly, then dawn came upon him and he blushed hard. He waved his hands in negation.
"Oh, no! I've shown them what he's up to and they usually made up their own mind, but you looked so, I dunno, broken. I wanted to learn him."
He saw the relief as it played over her face, but something else came up.
"So, you can fix me now?"
"No!"
He growled at his own lack of vocabulary and turned from her.
"I just..." he tried to explain. "I just wanted to help! I'd seen him hurt too many girls and I just...I dunno, I liked you. I got angry."
Mythos could feel the heat rising in his cheeks and therefore didn't hear Tracey as she knelt behind him and wrapped her arms around him. Mythos grew still as he felt her cheek pressed to the side of his head, her breath feathered lightly there as she whispered something to him. She pulled him to her and planted a soft, almost tender kiss on his head. Tracey let him go and stood up. She picked up her helmet and bounced across the lawn as Mythos watched her go. She laughed brightly and waved at him as she put on her helmet. He waved back and watched as she motored down the driveway and out onto the road.
"...so, what'd she say?"
Crazie stood at his side, watching along with him. Something had...happened. Lost gongs sounded in the depths of his gnarled soul, drums he hadn't heard in ages resonated there. He hadn't heard them in eons. Aeons, even. Rhythms that swayed in the darkest hearts of those he'd known before, through the minds that spoke his name in the reverence-
"Myth?"
He started out of his revelry and glanced at her before looking back.
"She said, 'None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.'," he looked up at Crazie. "It's Thoreau."
He reached up and touched where she'd kissed him. It kindled.
***
Mythos stared past the red of the lights as they played and swirled across his face, his breath curling in the last of the October night, cold to colder skies above.
***
The light, warm breezes of April in the South gave way quickly to the muggy heat of May, though Mythos had to admit that it wasn't bad until you got to August. Tracey had become a regular fixture on the weekends, coming over to hang out, play the latest from Sony, courtesy of Loki, or whatnot. Loki hit pause on the latest first person shooter. Mythos had given up trying to learn all the games and sequels and crap. He still preferred World of Warcraft.
"You mean, you're actually staying in this dump town over the summer?" Loki wondered.
Tracey shrugged, her long dark hair spilling over her bare shoulders. She'd worn a tank top with her shorts. Mythos had a hard time not looking at the way she moved. He cleared his throat and went back to his notes.
"Where, exactly," Tracey asked. "Do you think I have to go to?"
"Don't you have..." Loki blinked at himself. "Well, no I suppose you wouldn't be visiting other relatives, would you? Sorry, I just get all excited in the summer when the kids leave."
"I know," she smiled. "I lived through the boredom of last summer, though living so close to the beach is nice in that regard. I can not work on a tan."
"You can tan?" Mythos said with a smirk.
"Bite me, squiddie."
"I bet you'd like that," he chuckled as he leaned in close to her. "Wouldn't you?"
Tracey leaned up and rested an arm on the edge of the sofa, her face dangerously close to his.
"Yeah, I think I would."
Her complete deadpan had caught him off guard and Mythos blushed as he sat back a little. He growled as she giggled and turned back to the game. He scooted off the sofa and picked up the newspaper that lay on the corner table.
"So where's Crazie?" Tracey asked. "I haven't seen her in almost a week."
Loki glanced at Mythos, who had stopped at the door. Loki paused the game again.
"She's gone," Mythos said quietly.
Tracey spun on him in shock, "Wha-How?! What happened?"
"Her ship," Loki sighed. "She'd finished it a while ago. Myth knew and thought we all knew, but we didn't. She took off last Friday for her home."
Tracey, who had pulled herself to her knees, rested her head against the sofa and blew out a stiff breath.
"Home," Tracey chuckled to herself as she relaxed. "I thought by gone, you meant dead!"
"That's not a real biggie," Gerald walked past. "Lemme tell ya."
Mythos clicked his tongue on his beak.
"Oh, you're finally up, huh?" he growled. "You were gonna help me with the jacuzzi today!"
"Hey, it was a long night last night," Gerald shrugged.
"Too much Evercrack, dude," Loki chuckled. "Tracey, Crazie's goal, from the minute she bashed into the house, was to eventually go home. We don't know why she stayed, honestly."
"She'll be back," Mythos nodded to himself.
"No, she won't," Gerald said, matter-of-factly. "She hated it here."
"She stayed because of us, you nimrods," Loki sighed.
The three of them exchanged a look and breathed out a collective sigh.
"Awwww!" Tracey dropped her controller and clapped her hands together. "You guys miss her!"
They shared a look again.
"Yeah, I suppose we do," Mythos nodded again. "For the last twenty years, it's just been the three of us."
"Kinda like a frat house?" Tracey asked.
"Yeah," Mythos smirked. "But without the smell of beer and urine."
"No," she smirked in return. "Just wet dog, fish and mummies."
Mythos stuck his tongue out at her and climbed onto the couch behind her. Gerald snorted, but then got a pensive look on his face.
"I try not to be out in the rain, thank you," Loki said.
"I smell?" Gerald sniffed at his non-pits.
Mythos ignored them.
"Hon, we do miss her, yeah. But she had to go back to her people. Wasn't like she could really take us with her," Mythos explained. "I mean, Loki and Ger could go, but her people have been at war with my people for millions of years. I couldn't have gone and then where would that have left me?"
"Ass end of nowhere," Loki said stiffly.
"Alone. Again. Naturally," Gerald said.
"Thank you, Gilbert O'Sullivan," Mythos growled.
"Okay, but what'd you do before you came to the house?"
Mythos grew silent, as a far away look drifted over his face.
"I...slept," he said slowly. "Losing a tiny bit of power with each passing day and year and millenia. The more years I spend awake, the more powerful I become, but it's gonna take millenia to get that back."
"I spent my years devoted to techomancy and perfecting my arts to the exclusion of even knowing what the Hell is going on in the world," Gerald spoke up. "I didn't even know I'd had a daughter. I...worked through all that..."
"I'm kinda in between those two," Loki said. "I was trapped for ages and when I was accidentally released, I spent time meddling with humans and governments and such...but like Myth, my powers had waned severely. Myth is still strong enough for me to read his power siggie all the way from Japan. I found my way to the house and voila. We compliment each other. So...frat house? Yeah, but without all the negative connotations."
Mythos and Gerald nodded in unison. A thought ran through Tracey's head. Something she'd thought about for a little while, but hadn't come to a conclusion, until now. She turned back to the television.
"Well, no worries about any of that," she said brightly. "You guys have me now. Come on, Loki, your furry butt is mine!"
Loki looked back at Gerald and Mythos, who glanced to each other and back again.
"Tracey..." Mythos said cautiously. "Do you mean that?"
"Huh?" she looked back at him. "Of course! I like you guys! Since I met Mythos back in March, my life is like a one eighty. I mean, it's like coming to a house with all of Freud's psyche models! And then Crazie was like the mom slash sister slash sex object-"
"I pick the Super-Ego!" Loki spoke up.
"Actually, Gerald is the Super-Ego," she laughed. "We know who the Id would be."
"Oh, come on," Mythos complained. "I only oggled her once and that's because I came up during her bathtime!"
The three of them laughed and even raised a chuckle from the old squid.
"Still," Gerald began. "Do you want to move in?"
Tracey dropped the controller and turned fully to him, "You mean it?"
Mythos nodded.
"Sure!" he said. "Look at it this way, even if Crazie comes back, we've still got tons of rooms in this old place. You're more than welcome to join our little madhouse."
"Yeah, but we keep the fat mirrors in Myth's room," Loki snickered.
"Don't make me come down there, fur ball."
She tossed Mythos the controller as they chuckled and, as they got back into the game, it looked settled. Or, as settled as it could be, all things considering.
***
Mythos stared past the red of the lights as they played and swirled across his face, his breath curling in the last of the October night, cold to colder skies above. He didn't feel the cold, as he usually did. He felt nothing. Nothing but guilt.
***
The weeks after the decision sped by for the four of them. Tracey hadn't had a whole lot to move in to the house, but it seemed to take an awful long time to do it. Then there was the redecorating. Mythos looked up at the black and silver paint scheme. It wouldn't have been the first one he'd have chosen, but then, she hadn't asked him. He had liked the custom Fender he'd helped hang from the one wall. Life moved on, as he knew it always would. Days moved into weeks. A wet June peeled back in the final week to uncover the gentle blast furnace of the South in the summer. They enjoyed a happy Fourth of July, watching the fireworks from the hillside beyond the house.
For his part, he tried to keep out of her way as much as possible, with varied results. He wondered at this one night. He had always been lonely, almost cultivating the lonliness that burned in him. The more he saw her, the more something else burned in him. Want. He hadn't experienced want this bad in thousands and probably hundreds of thousands of years. It wasn't the lusting kind of want he used to get from his prietesses. He understood that want very well and had explored that over thousands of years of obedience from those same women. Lust, sex, violence, hatred, anger, turmoil and strife? Those were nothing new. But this...whatever this was...this was new.
She always favored him with a smile when she saw him. If he couldn't escape from giving her the chance, she would talk to him in kind tones and even flirted and joked with him. And yet, something was missing. He felt it and he had been quite sure that she felt it as well. And that missing bit hurt. It hurt him to realize that she was just being friendly.
Humans hadn't invented the concept of love, of course. It was only the arrogance of humanity to think it had or that it had perfected it or something stupid like that. Love was a universaly concept, like anger or lust. A much finer concept, granted, but still universal. Mythos had never understood love, probably because, while he knew of it's existence, he'd never had it run up his nose, as Loki put it once. Not that he had a nose. Or pants. Love had always been for another race, another kind, another...life. But when Crazie had told him that his people had survived and were still out there? Perhaps there would still be a chance for him. He'd thought about that possibility for a long time, but had come to an awful conclusion, one that he himself thought almost heretical.
He wouldn't want to leave, even if he could. He had grown fond of this little mudball at the ass end of Perseus. So far out as to be overlooked in a hundred thousand civilizations that had floated closer to the galactic core. Earth had missed everything. Colonizations, plagues, world-eating monsters from the Andromeda galaxy. Earth had missed them all. And life had flourished. With a little push from the Cthulhu, life became intelligent, after a sort. In a generalized way, Mythos had come to love these little hairless apes that floundered around thinking they were so grand. The rest of his people on the planet had died, committed suicide, been murdered through the many wars with the others. Mythos had been the last. What more could he do than let his experiment run and go to sleep?
Mythos ran his hands across the dandelions on the hillside above the house. It was his favorite place and he couldn't exactly put a reason on why, not that it mattered. The grass would need to be mowed in a few weeks, something they only did a couple times a year, just for the look of the thing, really. The dandelions growled in their little yellow cores. Soon, they would mate and the frizzy white heads would spread their children to the four winds. Or, down to Jared McPherson's patch of mud he called a farm. Bastard deserved it. For now, the little weeds leaned in to their master and he smiled gently. He looked behind him as a familiar motor puttered to a stop in the driveway. Tracey got off her motorcycle and shook her raven hair out of the helmet. Since she'd begun living at the house, she'd put on a little weight, but only to go from scrawny emo-kid to beautiful gothic princess. She reached over to undo her saddlebags and Mythos couldn't help but admire how she'd filled out those pants. She straightened and waved to him. He smiled and waved back, even when he felt the odd pangs again. But what to do?
"Maybe you need a release?"
Mythos looked up from his sandwich later that day. Loki went on with some paperwork as if he hadn't said anything.
"What do you mean, release?"
Loki looked up.
"Release," he repeated. "When was the last time you went down to The Vault?"
Mythos stopped and thought about it for a moment. It indeed had been a long time since he'd gone to play. Of course, he hadn't really felt like it either, which probably was the reason he hadn't thought about it. He nodded slowly as he took his next bite. Two days later, Mythos pulled his MG into the parking area of The Vault. Once inside, familiar sights and smells assailed him and he smiled. It had been a long time.
And yet...something was off. He shook it off as he met Lady Emily. A leggy redhead with a big nose, they'd played with each other a couple years earlier, but she had gone off and gotten herself married in the meantime. Mythos looked into his Glennfiddich, afterward.
"Ya know," Emily began as she tried to smooth her hair. "You certainly weren't any worse for wear that I could tell."
"Oh, he's always fine," a voice said out of the gloom. "But he's a constant worry about himself. Again, as always."
"Momma!" Mythos jumped up and gave the large woman a big hug. "How are you, girl? I haven't seen you in a dog's age!"
He moved aside as she hitched up her corset and slid into the booth across from Emily. The booth shifted slightly, but held. Mythos looked over and tapped Gary, who spurted some kind of oil on the floor as he nodded. Emily came around the booth and gave the larger matron a hug as well. Gary shuffled around and set a plate in front of her, redolent in a ham sandwich. Mythos shook his head and chuckled.
"Shut your tentacled face," she smirked over the mayonnaise. "It's one of the final pleasures I get out of life, you little bastard. Not all of us are immortal."
"Cassie, I'm not immortal. You know that," he smirked. "But I'm glad you're here."
"Myth," Emily said. "Terry is here now-"
"Go on, honey," he sighed. "I'm sorry I wasn't-"
Emily reached around the small booth and pulled Mythos into a gentle, but firm, hug.
"I'll be more than happy to play with you again," she said softly to him. "You please me. I just wish I could give to you as well, but I'm sure you'll take care."
She set a kiss and flitted off into the dark, multi-colored dance floor. Momma Cass just watched as Mythos sat back down again. He raised an eyebrow at her and she chuckled. She wiped her mouth and waved him away as she drank her Cherry Coke.
"Now, my little Elder God," she looked at him appraisingly. "What was that all about? I've never known you to have problems performing."
He might originally think about what choice did he have to tell her. To tell anyone, really. But he did have choices. He had the choice not to tell anyone, to hide his feelings away, but that had never been like him. He enjoyed his feelings. He enjoyed being awake at this time, just when humans were beginning to get interesting! So...Mythos began to talk. Of Tracey and how they'd met. She chuckled and finished her sandwich as he finished his story. She waved to Gary, who nodded as steam blew out the back of his helmet.
"Perhaps you're beginning to think of her as more than a playmate?"
Mythos began to contradict her, then realized something.
"You know," he said thoughtfully. "She never really was a playmate."
"Oh?" Momma Cassie raised an eyebrow at him. "Have you tried?"
Gary squeaked and hissed as he set another ham sandwich down in front of her and swept up the other plate.
"...no," Mythos had to admit.
She smiled and patted him in his head before picking up the next sandwich, "Maybe you should?"
***
Part Two, later. ;)
Hope you read and enjoy! :)
Warning! This story is filled with angst, self-introspection, and a few VERY obscure references. You've been warned.
***
Little Black Wings
By
Joshua Trujillo
A Story From HappyPure
Part 1 :
The motor of the little convertible flared to life as Crazie gunned it once more. She giggled in delight as Peace and Love Incorporated blared from the Blaupunkt speakers.
"You know," Mythos growled from the back seat. "My MG is just as happy going the speed limit as it is flat out."
"Live a little!" Loki, currently in his geisha form, laughed from the passenger seat.
"Yeah," Crazie giggled again. "For a being as old as you are, you need to lighten up!"
Mythos showed her she was number one.
"To be honest," Gerald, sharing the backseat with Mythos, began. "I'm quite happy with a slower vehicle too."
Crazie hit the gas again as they sped through the Carolinian night. She glanced in the rear view mirror and brought it back down as she turned the radio down.
"Better, old man?"
"Old squid, thanks."
Crazie stuck her tongue out at him and turned to Loki.
"What made you want to come out this time?"
Loki smoothed the skirt of her kimono dress and blushed slightly, "There's a person I've been talking to and she said she'd be there tonight."
They all perked up.
"Oh?" Gerald smiled. "Anyone we might know?"
"The circles we run in are vast and varied, ya know?" Mythos chuckled. "But still, I'm glad both of you decided to come out with Crazie and I. Not that I mind her company, but her friends there like to toss greek sauce at me."
"That was one time, dammit!" Crazie huffed.
"At least it's not rice and nori," Gerald nudged Mythos, who nodded.
Mythos sat back in his seat and thought a little. He began to wonder, not for the first time, about Crazie. Here she was, going with him to The Vault for the past month, and her ship being done and ready. He'd done the mass trajectories and power comsumption data himself. She had been ready to leave for over two weeks and yet she remained. She also evaded the subject when he had asked her about it, which really hadn't been like her. She wasn't the type to evade. She was the type to storm the castle walls and paint graffiti on the helmets of the tower guard.
The countryside pulled away and the urban sprawl creeped around him as they came into the city. There was a good Goth club on the other side of the town, but there was something special about The Vault. Mythos knew the owners personally and had donated a bit to keep them afloat in rough times, a number of years back. They never forgot it and remained close friends, so, revealing his true form to them had taken a bit of courage on both their parts. When they accepted him, embraced him...did things to him...and they hadn't cared what he looked like or indeed what species he was, he knew they were special. And he had boatloads of cash. It wasn't like he hadn't been there for the start of banking and knew where to get the money or anything. Crazie swung the MG around the corner and there it was. Looming like a black tombstone out of the middle of an industrial complex, the old factory of The Vault sat like God's own footstool. It had been built in the 1920's as a cotton and textile factory, originally, though it'd gone through a number of transformations over the years, but the space came cheap and large, which is what Claire and Damon needed for The Vault.
A large, black and above all, opaque fence line stretched all around the parking lot as they pulled in. A security guard looked at Crazie's ID as she whipped it out. Loki said something about whipping it out and had to be reminded of his current form, which would make whipping anything out quite difficult. The guard, bored by the whole ordeal, waved them inside. Vehicles of all types sat inside, from Hummers and Alfa Romeos to Hondas and POS Fords.
"Oh great," Mythos pointed out toward the west end of the lot. "Steampunk Jimmy is here."
A black Model-T sat off by itself.
"Something wrong with him?" Gerald asked as he got out.
"He's an okay guy," Crazie began. "But don't touch him. His gears can rip a finger clean off."
"Or tentacle," Mythos growled.
"Bet that makes oral sex problematic," Loki chortled.
"Oh yeah," Crazie laughed. "You'll fit in here just fine."
The door set black, heavy and nondescript into the side of the brick structure and Mythos opened it, holding it open for the others to enter. A single naked bulb burned in the long hallway, the strains of heavy bass muted heavily in the background. A person in a black gas mask leaned out over the counter to look at Loki and Gerald, but noticed Mythos and began stroking the top of his latex covered head excitedly.
"Henry," Mythos waved. "These are friends of mine, Gerald and Loki. Of course you know Crazie."
Henry, the man in latex, wiped his hand together as Crazie proffered a black gloved hand of her own. He reached out gingerly, but winced in pain as a riding crop smacked him on the back of his head from the darkness behind him. He whimpered and slunk off as a large woman came forward. She wore a red leather corset and black leather gloves. Gerald couldn't see much else, but the hunger she levied in his direction made his skull sweat.
"Angie-" Crazie began, but stopped and cowered at the snap of the riding crop. "Mistress Margaurite. Henry was being a good boy."
"I told him not to touch any person for one whole day, Crazie," Angie ne Magaurite waggled her crop. "He simply must learn! But go on in, hon. Talon and the others are already here. Oh, and Mythos? Lady Esmerelda is here too."
Angie smirked as Mythos closed his eyes and shook his head. Mythos motioned Loki and Gerald down the tight hallway to the entrance door beyond.
"Problem with this Esmerelda, Myth?" Loki asked softly.
"You have no idea."
Crazie giggled at him as she opened the door. Waves of Crash from Mesh hit them as they stepped into the main atrium, vaulted stone arches leapt overhead on massive pillars, giving one the impression of a gothic cathedral. Gerald had seen this kind of work in his mortal life, before he had come to the New World, but with new materials, this work seemed lighter, more stylized. Probably because it was. Damon and Claire had been to Europe and had seen the gothic spans of stone there, but they'd also seen the later Renaissance works that were mroe designed to bring the viewer to awe, instead of fear. Gerald could see the combinations and smiled to himself. A melting pot, just like the New World had ever been. To one side, a full bar had been set up, though Gerald noted no alcohol on the shelves behind the bar. A great many dispensers and refrigerated units, but no alcohol. Interesting...
Beyond the atrium, the floor plan levelled out into the massive, three tiered space of the main complex. Struts and gangways spanned the great space above, supporting what looked to be whole room and hallways hanging over empty space. Balconeys and barred stages jutted out into the air, where humans of all shapes and sizes danced and ground against each other-
Myth pointed to a point two floors up where it looked like much more than dancing went on. Gerald felt his skull heat up as he watched them and jumped slightly as Crazie gently pulled him toward a table near a large stage near the back. The whole place had been painted a rather bland, industrial black that Gerald had only seen in theaters of the community nature. Indeed, there was a smell, which he had the tact on which not to comment, that struck him as they arranged themselves at the table. Not that it was an unagreeable smell, quite the contrary. It smelled like hormones and sweat and entropic excitement. A smell he hadn't found in years and quite suddenly realized he had missed it. The lights spun and circled. For a moment, nausea circled around a stomach that didn't exist, but went away as Crazie set a drink before him. Mythos tapped him and then tapped the side of his head. He and Loki both nodded. Crazie knocked on the table and pointed to herself. Mythos nodded and smiled.
Okay, ladies and gentlemen and Loki-, he began as he spoke directly into their minds.
Loki pointed a finger at him and he smirked.
The Vault, as you can see around you, he continued. Used to be an old factory, back in the day, as it were. It was Damon's idea to open the whole thing up and build virtually a see through club, but don't worry. The floors above are incredibly strong and stable. The various rooms are mostly blank, with some accessories that people can use during play and scenes. What seperates The Vault from other clubs is the amount of specific rooms used for play.
And the stages? Loki asked.
Yeah, Mythos nodded. Not many clubs have those either, but Damon and Claire's clientelle is many and varied. Anyway, there are rooms like the White Room, which is decked out like an office, in my opinion, but white walls and white lights and a big ol' white cross.
Even the handcuffs on the cross are padded in white, Crazie chuckled to herself.
Mythos snickered and nodded his head as the other two looked at her.
What?
Anyway, there's the Glass House, the Hall of Mirrors, the Pit and others, Mythos took another drink. I gave them a financial push near the beginning. Nothing big, mind you and they repaid me in full. Just something to get them going. They've done quite well. I hear that they have a whole bus load of people coming in from Tennessee next week. That should be interesting-ohshit!.
A whiplike cord spun out of the darkness and twined itself around Mythos' head, wrapping neatly around his eyes like a blindfold. Twirled on the end, Gerald thought he saw a glow stick, but couldn't tell as Mythos had been yanked into the darkness by it. Gerald turned to Loki, who had a wide grin on her face.
"I like it!" she said.
"There's so much...humanity," Gerald replied. "I can see why Myth likes it."
The night spread before them, full of promise and boobies. Loki had been approached by two men dressed in black leather and, as far as Gerald could tell, all together too much shiny metal. She giggled and they fawned and off she went. Crazie had come back and had introduced Gerald to several of her friends, including a Lord Talon. Gerald didn't comment, but rather thought it was for the hook of his nose than the long, metal encased fingers. He sat alone, enjoying the scenery, when a volumptuous woman sat next to him.
"You're one of Mythos' friends, aren't you?" she asked in a quiet patch of the ever-present music.
Gerald nodded, trying not to note the amount of cleavage pointed in his direction, or how much he kind of liked it.
"My name is Mistress Sandra," she rubbed an errant finger across the back of Gerald's skull. "Mythos came and told me that you were looking for something different. That you needed a good education."
"Madam, I happen to know a great many more things-"
"I'm sure you do," she said, an evil glint in her eye. "But interrupt me again, and I shall teach you more than you can handle. Mythos wanted you to have a good time. He's a good boy and I owe him one."
Her arms were gloved in latex or rubber or something of a similar nature. She idlly rubbed her finger across the back of his skull again and Gerald thought he might have heard a purr.
"So...what have you in mind?"
An open, engaging smile met him in return. She leaned closer and whispered something. He had to admit...the prospect intruiged him. He thought that, perhaps, it might be too much for the first time. But maybe not.
"Okay," he nodded as she got up. "Why the Hell not?"
***
Smoke rose happily from the top of Mythos' head as he sat at the booth near the bar. Gloria had whipped him into the darkness and had ended up monopolizing him for nearly two whole hours. Not that he really minded, but still, she hadn't needed to use force. At least it hadn't been Esmerelda. That bitch could go frenzy on a guy in a hurry and where was the fun in that? The most that Gloria wanted was a little face time with the calamari. Or, he supposed in his case, a lot of face time. He shook his head and sipped his Glenfiddich. That girl needed a hobby.
He sat back and enjoyed the single-malt with as much aplomb as he could, considering he couldn't feel three fingers on one hand and two of his tentacles. But no matter. Gloria was happy. That was always what mattered to him. He knew Gerald had began with an attendance to Mistress Sandra's House of Flogging. Mythos thought his friend must have handled it well, as he'd been told that Gerald continued to attend the other classes that were held almost constantly. It had occurred to him that Gerald would be more interested in the nuances of the lifestyle rather than the overall effect of it. Certainly, pleasure for pleasure, but hedonism had never been his style. Information and knowledge had been.
Unfortunately for Mythos, his regulars hadn't seemed to have arrived. Maybe Gloria knew that and therefore had been afforded some extra time. He shrugged and mentally sent another tap to the bartender. Mythos always loved the single-malt for right after a scene, but normally drank something a little lighter for the social part of the drinking. Drinking had become an interesting part of the social dynamic in The Vault. Have a beer? You were marked as something of a frat boy parading for some easy play, or worse, a poser who knew no better. Now, Guiness or good microbrew (though Mythos thought they all tasted like weak dog water), that got you some looks. Not much more, since it still happened to be beer, but at least you had your head on straight and might have more than two brain cells. Straight alcohol was always a safe bet, though not too much. Wouldn't want to become a drunk. Mythos' Glenfiddich had been the choice of the steampunk crowd for a long time. The Goth kids still preferred their vodka or, for the ones on vacation, gin. Sometimes with tonic, sometimes without. The serious Emo kids were all about the cheap whiskey. Or 151. Something to kill as many brain cells as possible as quickly as possible.
Gary, the steampunk bartender, clanked slightly as he set a Long Island in front of Mythos, who popped another gold coin on the table. Gary whislted and beeped as he took the little shiny disk and motored back behind the bar. The Vault had become one of the very few places where Mythos could actually spend the gold he had. Other places looked at him funny. The tea? It said that you either were strong enough to cover your own ass or that you simply didn't give a flying teabag what other people thought. For Mythos, it was a mix of the two. He took a sip and smacked some mouth parts in enjoyment. Something had been tickling his senses ever since he'd sat down. He'd thought it had been the numbness, but no, it was something...
He looked down to the end of the bar and, yes, there it was. Small girl, black hair. Emo? Possibly, but she lacked the pasty white antipathy that most of the cutters wore so gracelessly. Mythos smirked to himself and stood. He gathered his drink and made his way quietly to her, taking in more details. Floofy dress, a black petticoat or sets of black petticoats, lace corset and pigtails tied in ribbons and- oh yes, there was the kicker. Striped tights with heavy boots. Loligoth. He almost turned around for his booth, but the girl turned. She looked entirely uncomfortable sitting there. Certainly not a regular or even someone comfortable with those clothes. That said...he sighed. It said that he had been overthinking things. Normally, he would have been more concerned about breaking out in a flop-sweat from the tension that meeting a new girl, or really any girl, would give him. The quick scene with Gloria and the alcohol, however, did wonders to his confidence. He shrugged and continued on to her seat at the bar.
"Hey there!"
She turned to him and he saw the scathing retort die on her lips as she tried to process the information her eyes had fed to her. His real form had always been an ice-breaker. Of course, his real form had been a mind breaker too, but that's why he never used it. The girl recovered nicely.
"Um, hi," she half-smiled.
She nodded and turned back around, searching the crowd again. Mythos smirked to himself again. Hmmm...black lipstick too...
"Don't know many people who are stand-offish in here," he said. "It's more of an extrovert crowd, by nature. So what's your deal?"
"Maybe I'm waiting for someone," she said without turning around as she tried to hide her own smirk.
"Waiting?" Mythos croaked. "Found someone you have!"
He cracked a goofy smile and she openly smiled as she shook her head.
"Okay, bad line," he took a sip of his tea. "Are you waiting for someone?"
Her smile faded, only to be replaced by something a tad more sour. Mythos had seen that look before.
"Yeah. From an hour ago," she sighed. "Looks like I got stuck waiting for him."
Mythos thought about headdiving to get the information, but there was something about this girl that calmed and excited him. Not the clothes...the hair? Looking closer, it wasn't truly black or dyed. The lights made the true color of any hair hard to tell. She turned back to the bar as Gary set another beer in front of her. She smiled at him. Her eyes laughed a little as she glanced at Mythos. He shook his head and sipped his tea again. He hadn't realized he had been staring.
"This person you're waiting for," he began. "Is a regular?"
"Yeah, he says he is," she sighed. "Name's John Rubies. Why? You know'm?"
Mythos darkened slightly as he thought of Rubies. The name brought his blood pressure up.
"Hey!" she set a hand at his shoulder. "You do know him, don't you?"
Mythos shivered at her touch and nodded his head solemnly.
"He's here too," he reached back and set his tea on the bar before he broke it.
"No," she smiled and shook her head. "He can't be here. I've been watching that door all night!"
She pointed...and Mythos' heart sank.
"He told you to watch the one by the cages?"
She nodded.
"It's the side door," he said. "That's for employees and he's certainly not one."
A haunted look passed over her face before she closed in on herself. Mythos ground his beak together. He wished he hadn't seen the bastard earlier in the evening, but Gloria liked the stages that overlooked the main stage from three levels up. It afforded a voyeuristic privacy that couldn't be matched elsewhere in the club. He'd seen exactly where he'd gone. Plus, he knew the bastard.
"You know where he is too, don't you?"
He'd heard that voice in other women before too and how it made his blood burn for blood. Mythos reined himself in and nodded.
"Will you take me to him?"
"I can show you where he is," he said almost quietly. "But I doubt he'll want to talk to either of us."
"Maybe it's enough for me to believe you," she said barely above the music.
Her pigtails had fallen forward, scantly covering her face. Her dark eyes almost ready to burst as she reached out and touched his arm pleadingly. All the anger drained from him as this girl tugged on his arm. This girl whose only sin was perhaps not having enough insight on her choice of romantic interests. He sighed again and hopped off the seat. She looked down at him and took his proffered hand. He hated to do it, but it had been her request, after all.
Back out into the din of the club, Mythos led the girl to a spiral staircase set along the left side. Wide metal stairs led upward, each stair adorned with a single rock. The metaphor had never been lost on him, but he hoped that, at least tonight, she wouldn't take it literally. The staircase opened up to a large dance floor where many bodies in various states of clothing bumped and ground to the din of some good old fashioned Nine Inch Nails, leaving each other little imagination as to the events of the rest of the night. The girl continued to follow Mythos to the edge of the balconey. Large, wrought iron posts not only served to anchor the mass above the floor below, but led to a voyeuristic feel look across the chasm to the Glass House. Really, only bits of it were truly glass. Most was plexiglass and laminated or tempered glass, the kind of stuff that's used in high rise buildings. He had hoped that, when he'd led her to the edge of the balconey, that the House would be empty and...no such luck.
There he was, a blonde on either side of him. Rubies had taken care of himself, certainly, but it was his arrogance that many women cited as why they were interested and, eventually, why they couldn't stand the sight of him anymore. He looked good in the mirror and, for a great many women, that's really all that mattered. Mythos looked again and snorted. One of the blondes was Esmerelda. He smirked to himself. They deserved each other. He turned the girl, but she had taken off. Mythos caught sight of her heading down the staircase and he swam through the crowd back to the balconey. Her tears were the only thing that followed her outside.
A growl began low inside him, one he hadn't felt in a long time and one that he hadn't thought he'd ever feel. That son of a bitch! Mythos finally realized the thing about the girl that he had liked. Her innocence. An almost palpable, tangible presence of true innocence. Not naivete or stupidity, but...innocence. A seething anger caught him as he looked back up to the Glass House. She hadn't deserved that and while it had been partially his fault, John would soon get the blunt end of the fuck stick. Tonight would not end well for him.
***
Mythos looked to the pile of fruit on his desk as he packed away his notes. He had told his students, who seemed to be fond of giving him apples, that an assortment of fruit would be more conducive to his favor. He had honestly expected that not one of his students would understand, but apparently this class seemed brighter than most. Part of him took a little shivery excitement in thinking that it had been his skill as a professor. Even if it wasn't, he'd still take the compliment in thinking it was. He taught two classes in a row in this same damned classroom, before heading over to Unbacher Hall for the last class, which, naturally, lay on the other side of the campus and farthest from his MG. He reached for a banana, peeled it back and stuck it in his mouth as he continued to pack. Having his own room, for all his classes...ah, but what a dream. A snippet of conversation from the hall caught his attention.
"...and then he stuck the guy's head up his ass!" one girl laughed.
"No! I know him! His head wouldn't fit!"
"I'm serious," the first claimed. "The ambulance had to be called and everything. It was the weirdest thing..."
Mythos chuckled to himself as he finished his banana. He'll live. Somewhat. He lifted the rest of the fruit and shoveled them into a side dimension. They would keep there. He set his beret on his head and stepped out into the hallway. Ochre, babyshit colored paint splayed up the high walls to a dirty cream on the ceiling, the floors tiled with alternating pea green and gray vinyl tiles. The dirty cream colored radiator on the far wall pumped and chugged through a cycle. Mythos sighed inwardly. University Hall was such a depressing place. Not conducive to learning at all. Of course, the desks made to fit third-graders hadn't helped much either. Mythos turned the corner, pushed open the doors to the stairs and made his way down. Students trucked up the stairs or, in the case of the couple on the second floor landing, made out on the stairs. He thought for a minute about making an example of them, but he hadn't any popcorn and today didn't seem to be the time for a spectator sport, for some reason. He settled on clearing his throat as he went past. They broke their amorous tonguelock with a modicrum of giggles and sorry's. Mythos smiled and continued down.
Warm spring air assailed him as he stepped outside. Mythos took a deep breath, letting the lavender and lilac scents wash over him. He smiled broadly as a tall blonde roller bladed past him. Ostentiably, what she wore could be called work out attire. He thought of it more like advertisement. Especially the college name across the butt of her tiny shorts. Classy. But still, he wouldn't ever complain. That's what spring begat in a college town. Even in the South, where temperatures never got overly cold. And yet, three months of covering up what they worked so hard to show off seemed like an intermitable long amount of time.
He set off leisurely. The sun dappled through the trees across the quad, creating lakes and eddies of light and shadow, where the student body could play and, well, spawn. Mythos said his hellos to students in his class or ones past. He remembered them all, even if they hadn't wanted to remember him. His class had never been easy. In fact, he considered himself one of the hardest grades in the non science classes, but he never made his classes boring. After all, he had a derth of knowledge in the field of ancient history, having lived in it. He never taught Intelligent Design because, after all, who would believe that he had been the intelligent designer? Unbacher Hall loomed, looking nothing so much like the Flatiron building, but with more points. A generalized Math / Sci building, it also held-
Mythos stopped as a sense overtook him. Someone watched him. Not from very far either. He dropped a book and let that be the impetus for the pause in his stride. He absently shovelled around his armload and picked the book off the ground. Behind and to his left. It felt like a kind of predator? Stalking...something waiting to pounce. It evoked no fear in him. Truly, if he wanted, what on Earth could stop him? But still, he didn't want to get molested on his way to class. He straightened and hurried into the hall. He cut to his right just on the other side of the door and got up the stairs. He turned again and hurried out onto the second floor.
An atrium spanned the second floor, a large triangle with a nicely geometric model spinning lazily in the center, reaching almost to the floor below. Mythos made his way calmly along one side and peered over the edge to the door. A girl ran in and stopped just inside the carpeted area leading to the grand staircase directly across from the door. Her dark, almost purple hair gathered into a single ponytail flung back and forth as she looked around. She wore a plain tshirt and blue jeans, though Mythos could see her black fingernails and pale skin from up here. She hesitated, then backed slowly out of the building. Mythos looked up and made his way to a window along the point and watched as the girl looked all around. She set her backpack at her shoulder and, with a final look over her shoulder, made her way out of sight.
Why? She was obviously on the look out for him and she'd obviously seen him. Not just the disguise that he'd stretched into reality over himself, but the real him! The one with tentacles and green skin that she'd met two nights ago at the club. But how? Even the students he'd known were at the Vault couldn't see through his disguise. It was flawless. He'd spent thousands of years making it so. He'd have to get Gerald to look into it. He wasn't about to get caught with his pants down.
...not that he wore pants...
...but metaphorically...
***
Mythos looked to his right and left at the eyestalks on either side of him. They blinked every now and again.
"You can stop twitching," Gerald said across the room. "I told you they weren't alive."
"Then why make them look like they're alive?"
Gerald turned, his monocle flipping into place, "Kicks."
"I'm gonna kick you if you don't get this damned scan completed."
"Hold your face on," Gerald snorted as he turned back. "It's almost done."
Mythos rolled his eyes and waited until a little ding sounded somewhere behind him.
"Does that mean I'm done?"
Gerald glanced at him and back at his viewscreen, "Ya know, everything looks intact. You said she was the girl you helped at the club?"
Mythos nodded.
"This the one-"
"With the head," Mythos smirked. "Yeah."
He paused for a second, "Has she found out?"
"I could hardly think she wouldn't have found out," Mythos shrugged. "What with how quickly news travels in this town. I don't know though, I kinda lost track-"
A knock resounded from the top of the stairs.
"Dr. Abbadon?" Crazie called out. "You have a visitor."
Mythos and Gerald exchanged glances, but Mythos shook his head.
"Gerald and I are a little busy-"
"She's insisting on seeing you." Crazie sounded a little more insistent. "Says it's for a class."
Mythos snorted.
"My students can get a little pushy," he shrugged and walked out of the conjuring circle. "I'd better head up and deal with this one."
"You give them our home address?"
Mythos smirked, "Why not? What, exactly, are they gonna see?"
"Well," Gerald took his monocle off. "If they're like this girl of yours, apparently they see it all, dumbass!"
Mythos rankled a bit, but waved him off and headed upstairs. One person, one female in how many thousands that he'd taught in the last eighteen years at the university? One female in the last eight million years? Well, no. There had been others. Exceptional women and women only, as far as he knew. He supposed, with the way genetics worked out, that at least one man would pop up there, but Mythos had never met him. But the last female had been in the Rennaisance courts of Italy, a hundred years after the plague. He smirked to himself as he let his disguise flow over him. Those had been some days. Mythos topped the stairs and turned to the livingroom.
"So, how can I help-"
The girl stood there. Different shirt, black jeans, but same nails, pale skin and big brown eyes. Eyes that he could get lost in. And for Mythos, getting lost somewhere like that said something...
She also looked right at him. Not at his disguise, but right at him and, even though he hadn't ever worn pants, Mythos thought he couldn't feel more naked.
***
As so often happened in the house, for meetings and the like, they gathered once again around the large, round kitchen table. Loki happily sat next to this new girl that seemed to have Myth's number. Gerald fiddled with a little device that looked like an iPod had sex with a Rube Goldberg blender. Crazie passed the new girl a root beer and sat next to Mythos, who chewed on the cap of a Vitamin water, in between sips. Her name was Tracey Wilkins and apparently she was very good at finding people. She found Mythos.
"I have to admit, I never thought I'd see you again," Tracey said, after a drink of her rootbeer. "Or, for that fact, that you're real."
"I want to know how you can see past his illusion," Gerald muttered without looking up.
"Oh, I've always seen ghosts and little critters out in the woods around my old home. I grew up thinking that everyone could see them," she explained. "Made me wonder when I found out that it was only me."
Mythos spat out the lid and took a drink.
"It's called resonance," he said.
"Like, she's in tune with you?" Crazie asked.
"Mm, not just with me," he shook his head. "Probably the whole damned spirit world. She's sees things for what they are, no matter the illusion."
Tracey stopped at this and her cute brow furled.
"But..." she began slowly, "You didn't use illusions when you were at the club."
"It's the one place where looking like a tentacled monster is actually helpful," Crazie smirked.
"The chicks dig it," Mythos nodded.
"Guys dig it too," she nudged Mythos. "From what I hear."
Mythos let out a low growl and scowled.
"I heard something about a Doberman Pinscher..." Loki asked.
"Parker has no proof I did anything to that damned dog," Mythos pointed angrily. "So knock it off!"
Tracey put a hand to her chest as a bright peel of laughter burst from her. Mythos tried to glare at her, but somewhere in his hindbrain, a little resonance of his own rippled and disturbed deep waters. He sat back down and groused as Tracey wiped tears.
"Oh god," she settled. "I haven't laughed like that since I moved down here."
"We noticed that you really don't have a Carolinian accent," Gerald mused. "You're from Ohio, aren't you?"
"Yup!" she nodded happily. "When my parents finally passed away, I was left to pretty much fend for myself and I'd had enough of snow. I'd been talking a friend of mine from down here and so, I moved."
"Finally?" Loki asked.
"Yeah," she said sadly. "They were both in a car wreck. Both of them left comatose and the doctors said there was no chance. Fortunately, I was eighteen already and I could take care of myself, but I still miss them horribly."
The four of them nodded in unison.
"They always had one wish, something dad would talk to me about," Tracey continued. "He wanted me to get my education, whether that be college or tech school or something. Even though we were pretty set, it was still important to him, so that was the second bit of moving down here."
"And the goth?" Loki asked.
She smirked, "You try being cheery in this world."
"She's got a point there," Mythos finished his drink.
"Still, you can't be gloomy all the time," Crazie mused, her head resting on her hand. "What about finding a guy-"
"-or girl!" Gerald cut in.
Mythos sniggered.
"...or girl?"
A cloud fell over Tracey's face, one that pulled at Mythos.
"I thought I had found one."
An uncomfortable silence fell around the group, punctuated by a snort from Tracey.
"By the way," she asked as she turned to Mythos. "How did you get him to bend so that his head went up his own ass?"
Gerald snorted.
"Magic does wonders."
"Oh, I don't believe in magic," Tracey said automatically. "Only in technology that's far ahead of me."
A glance passed between the four of them at the table. Gerald smiled slightly.
"You're right in some parts of that," he began slowly. "Loki and I are way ahead of most humans. Crazie is ahead simply because she's not human...but Myth..."
Mythos looked away and shook his head in disgust as apparently he'd soured to the topic.
"I'm..." he stumbled. "I'm only ahead because I'm so damned old."
Crazie sighed and rubbed her head.
"Same old, same old," she said.
Mythos stuck his tongue out at her.
"Listen, Tracey," Crazie said as she tried to ignore the faces Mythos made at her. "If you want to come over and hang out or whatever, you're very welcome."
Gerald and Loki nodded happily and, even though he angrily ignored most of them, he nodded as well. He got up from the table and made his way outside. He sighed. He supposed it would always come down to age. He was the oldest one in any room, save for rooms that included galaxies and stars. The burny gas kind of stars, not the Paris Hilton kind. Though he wouldn't mind bringing those two kinds together. At least then she could use her famous catch-phrase. Briefly.
He could see the ocean today, out there beyond the pines. Gerald had chosen the hillside well for it's view and for the property values, which had tanked in most places, but had kept well here. Mythos supposed it was what happened when you had a place for four hundred years. After all, he'd had R'yleh for nearly seven million years. Ever since he'd lost his palace in the Antarctic to the Mi-Go. Damned 'shrooms. R'yleh was beach front property in the Pacific. Nevermind that it sunk every hundred thousand years or so, you could still get a hundred generations use out of it! Mythos sighed again.
He liked watching the ocean, especially as the sun set behind the house. It cast shadows to the clouds out at sea, reds and purples, casting to lighter shades higher up. He could remember sitting and seeing this sunset all over the world through the eyes of humans since they had eyes to watch. Never had any of them suspected Mythos riding their minds and just watching the sunset. True, it was the eastern edge of the sunset, but he prefered to get a jump on things. Time passed this way, as it had passed when he had slept. Down there, it had been almost intermitable. A couple million years asleep and then what happens? His pet experiment becomes sentient and begins to dream. Mythos hadn't bothered much with humans since he'd scared those first monkeys out of their tree. That had been a fun day.
He shook himself out of his revelry as the door opened beside him.
"Well, I have to head out," Tracey said from inside. "Got class tomorrow and still have to put up a prospectus about a couple articles I haven't read."
She turned and stopped at the little squid sitting on the bench to one side of the porch. He looked over at her and smiled absently.
"You have fun sitting out here all by your lonesome?" she asked. "You've been out here quite a while."
"Really?"
Mythos reached into a small side dimension and pulled out his pocket watch. Sure enough, the time read that he'd been outside nearly four hours.
"Wow," he said as he put the watch back. "My mind wanders sometimes."
"...you okay?"
Mythos sighed and stretched.
"Yeah," he said as he got up. "You?"
She smiled warmly and nodded.
"I will be, I think."
A silence passed between them as they tried to think of something to say. And why, exactly, it felt awkward between them. Both began to speak and stopped. The shared a chuckle. A little color rose in Tracey's face. She coughed.
"Thank you. For helping me with John," she said. "It meant a lot to me, though, I think perhaps a talking to might have saved the medical bills."
"Don't you worry about any of that," Mythos waved a hand. "Besides, why do you think I knew where he was? I've dealt with him before."
"...other...girls? I mean, you've-"
He looked at her questioningly, then dawn came upon him and he blushed hard. He waved his hands in negation.
"Oh, no! I've shown them what he's up to and they usually made up their own mind, but you looked so, I dunno, broken. I wanted to learn him."
He saw the relief as it played over her face, but something else came up.
"So, you can fix me now?"
"No!"
He growled at his own lack of vocabulary and turned from her.
"I just..." he tried to explain. "I just wanted to help! I'd seen him hurt too many girls and I just...I dunno, I liked you. I got angry."
Mythos could feel the heat rising in his cheeks and therefore didn't hear Tracey as she knelt behind him and wrapped her arms around him. Mythos grew still as he felt her cheek pressed to the side of his head, her breath feathered lightly there as she whispered something to him. She pulled him to her and planted a soft, almost tender kiss on his head. Tracey let him go and stood up. She picked up her helmet and bounced across the lawn as Mythos watched her go. She laughed brightly and waved at him as she put on her helmet. He waved back and watched as she motored down the driveway and out onto the road.
"...so, what'd she say?"
Crazie stood at his side, watching along with him. Something had...happened. Lost gongs sounded in the depths of his gnarled soul, drums he hadn't heard in ages resonated there. He hadn't heard them in eons. Aeons, even. Rhythms that swayed in the darkest hearts of those he'd known before, through the minds that spoke his name in the reverence-
"Myth?"
He started out of his revelry and glanced at her before looking back.
"She said, 'None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.'," he looked up at Crazie. "It's Thoreau."
He reached up and touched where she'd kissed him. It kindled.
***
Mythos stared past the red of the lights as they played and swirled across his face, his breath curling in the last of the October night, cold to colder skies above.
***
The light, warm breezes of April in the South gave way quickly to the muggy heat of May, though Mythos had to admit that it wasn't bad until you got to August. Tracey had become a regular fixture on the weekends, coming over to hang out, play the latest from Sony, courtesy of Loki, or whatnot. Loki hit pause on the latest first person shooter. Mythos had given up trying to learn all the games and sequels and crap. He still preferred World of Warcraft.
"You mean, you're actually staying in this dump town over the summer?" Loki wondered.
Tracey shrugged, her long dark hair spilling over her bare shoulders. She'd worn a tank top with her shorts. Mythos had a hard time not looking at the way she moved. He cleared his throat and went back to his notes.
"Where, exactly," Tracey asked. "Do you think I have to go to?"
"Don't you have..." Loki blinked at himself. "Well, no I suppose you wouldn't be visiting other relatives, would you? Sorry, I just get all excited in the summer when the kids leave."
"I know," she smiled. "I lived through the boredom of last summer, though living so close to the beach is nice in that regard. I can not work on a tan."
"You can tan?" Mythos said with a smirk.
"Bite me, squiddie."
"I bet you'd like that," he chuckled as he leaned in close to her. "Wouldn't you?"
Tracey leaned up and rested an arm on the edge of the sofa, her face dangerously close to his.
"Yeah, I think I would."
Her complete deadpan had caught him off guard and Mythos blushed as he sat back a little. He growled as she giggled and turned back to the game. He scooted off the sofa and picked up the newspaper that lay on the corner table.
"So where's Crazie?" Tracey asked. "I haven't seen her in almost a week."
Loki glanced at Mythos, who had stopped at the door. Loki paused the game again.
"She's gone," Mythos said quietly.
Tracey spun on him in shock, "Wha-How?! What happened?"
"Her ship," Loki sighed. "She'd finished it a while ago. Myth knew and thought we all knew, but we didn't. She took off last Friday for her home."
Tracey, who had pulled herself to her knees, rested her head against the sofa and blew out a stiff breath.
"Home," Tracey chuckled to herself as she relaxed. "I thought by gone, you meant dead!"
"That's not a real biggie," Gerald walked past. "Lemme tell ya."
Mythos clicked his tongue on his beak.
"Oh, you're finally up, huh?" he growled. "You were gonna help me with the jacuzzi today!"
"Hey, it was a long night last night," Gerald shrugged.
"Too much Evercrack, dude," Loki chuckled. "Tracey, Crazie's goal, from the minute she bashed into the house, was to eventually go home. We don't know why she stayed, honestly."
"She'll be back," Mythos nodded to himself.
"No, she won't," Gerald said, matter-of-factly. "She hated it here."
"She stayed because of us, you nimrods," Loki sighed.
The three of them exchanged a look and breathed out a collective sigh.
"Awwww!" Tracey dropped her controller and clapped her hands together. "You guys miss her!"
They shared a look again.
"Yeah, I suppose we do," Mythos nodded again. "For the last twenty years, it's just been the three of us."
"Kinda like a frat house?" Tracey asked.
"Yeah," Mythos smirked. "But without the smell of beer and urine."
"No," she smirked in return. "Just wet dog, fish and mummies."
Mythos stuck his tongue out at her and climbed onto the couch behind her. Gerald snorted, but then got a pensive look on his face.
"I try not to be out in the rain, thank you," Loki said.
"I smell?" Gerald sniffed at his non-pits.
Mythos ignored them.
"Hon, we do miss her, yeah. But she had to go back to her people. Wasn't like she could really take us with her," Mythos explained. "I mean, Loki and Ger could go, but her people have been at war with my people for millions of years. I couldn't have gone and then where would that have left me?"
"Ass end of nowhere," Loki said stiffly.
"Alone. Again. Naturally," Gerald said.
"Thank you, Gilbert O'Sullivan," Mythos growled.
"Okay, but what'd you do before you came to the house?"
Mythos grew silent, as a far away look drifted over his face.
"I...slept," he said slowly. "Losing a tiny bit of power with each passing day and year and millenia. The more years I spend awake, the more powerful I become, but it's gonna take millenia to get that back."
"I spent my years devoted to techomancy and perfecting my arts to the exclusion of even knowing what the Hell is going on in the world," Gerald spoke up. "I didn't even know I'd had a daughter. I...worked through all that..."
"I'm kinda in between those two," Loki said. "I was trapped for ages and when I was accidentally released, I spent time meddling with humans and governments and such...but like Myth, my powers had waned severely. Myth is still strong enough for me to read his power siggie all the way from Japan. I found my way to the house and voila. We compliment each other. So...frat house? Yeah, but without all the negative connotations."
Mythos and Gerald nodded in unison. A thought ran through Tracey's head. Something she'd thought about for a little while, but hadn't come to a conclusion, until now. She turned back to the television.
"Well, no worries about any of that," she said brightly. "You guys have me now. Come on, Loki, your furry butt is mine!"
Loki looked back at Gerald and Mythos, who glanced to each other and back again.
"Tracey..." Mythos said cautiously. "Do you mean that?"
"Huh?" she looked back at him. "Of course! I like you guys! Since I met Mythos back in March, my life is like a one eighty. I mean, it's like coming to a house with all of Freud's psyche models! And then Crazie was like the mom slash sister slash sex object-"
"I pick the Super-Ego!" Loki spoke up.
"Actually, Gerald is the Super-Ego," she laughed. "We know who the Id would be."
"Oh, come on," Mythos complained. "I only oggled her once and that's because I came up during her bathtime!"
The three of them laughed and even raised a chuckle from the old squid.
"Still," Gerald began. "Do you want to move in?"
Tracey dropped the controller and turned fully to him, "You mean it?"
Mythos nodded.
"Sure!" he said. "Look at it this way, even if Crazie comes back, we've still got tons of rooms in this old place. You're more than welcome to join our little madhouse."
"Yeah, but we keep the fat mirrors in Myth's room," Loki snickered.
"Don't make me come down there, fur ball."
She tossed Mythos the controller as they chuckled and, as they got back into the game, it looked settled. Or, as settled as it could be, all things considering.
***
Mythos stared past the red of the lights as they played and swirled across his face, his breath curling in the last of the October night, cold to colder skies above. He didn't feel the cold, as he usually did. He felt nothing. Nothing but guilt.
***
The weeks after the decision sped by for the four of them. Tracey hadn't had a whole lot to move in to the house, but it seemed to take an awful long time to do it. Then there was the redecorating. Mythos looked up at the black and silver paint scheme. It wouldn't have been the first one he'd have chosen, but then, she hadn't asked him. He had liked the custom Fender he'd helped hang from the one wall. Life moved on, as he knew it always would. Days moved into weeks. A wet June peeled back in the final week to uncover the gentle blast furnace of the South in the summer. They enjoyed a happy Fourth of July, watching the fireworks from the hillside beyond the house.
For his part, he tried to keep out of her way as much as possible, with varied results. He wondered at this one night. He had always been lonely, almost cultivating the lonliness that burned in him. The more he saw her, the more something else burned in him. Want. He hadn't experienced want this bad in thousands and probably hundreds of thousands of years. It wasn't the lusting kind of want he used to get from his prietesses. He understood that want very well and had explored that over thousands of years of obedience from those same women. Lust, sex, violence, hatred, anger, turmoil and strife? Those were nothing new. But this...whatever this was...this was new.
She always favored him with a smile when she saw him. If he couldn't escape from giving her the chance, she would talk to him in kind tones and even flirted and joked with him. And yet, something was missing. He felt it and he had been quite sure that she felt it as well. And that missing bit hurt. It hurt him to realize that she was just being friendly.
Humans hadn't invented the concept of love, of course. It was only the arrogance of humanity to think it had or that it had perfected it or something stupid like that. Love was a universaly concept, like anger or lust. A much finer concept, granted, but still universal. Mythos had never understood love, probably because, while he knew of it's existence, he'd never had it run up his nose, as Loki put it once. Not that he had a nose. Or pants. Love had always been for another race, another kind, another...life. But when Crazie had told him that his people had survived and were still out there? Perhaps there would still be a chance for him. He'd thought about that possibility for a long time, but had come to an awful conclusion, one that he himself thought almost heretical.
He wouldn't want to leave, even if he could. He had grown fond of this little mudball at the ass end of Perseus. So far out as to be overlooked in a hundred thousand civilizations that had floated closer to the galactic core. Earth had missed everything. Colonizations, plagues, world-eating monsters from the Andromeda galaxy. Earth had missed them all. And life had flourished. With a little push from the Cthulhu, life became intelligent, after a sort. In a generalized way, Mythos had come to love these little hairless apes that floundered around thinking they were so grand. The rest of his people on the planet had died, committed suicide, been murdered through the many wars with the others. Mythos had been the last. What more could he do than let his experiment run and go to sleep?
Mythos ran his hands across the dandelions on the hillside above the house. It was his favorite place and he couldn't exactly put a reason on why, not that it mattered. The grass would need to be mowed in a few weeks, something they only did a couple times a year, just for the look of the thing, really. The dandelions growled in their little yellow cores. Soon, they would mate and the frizzy white heads would spread their children to the four winds. Or, down to Jared McPherson's patch of mud he called a farm. Bastard deserved it. For now, the little weeds leaned in to their master and he smiled gently. He looked behind him as a familiar motor puttered to a stop in the driveway. Tracey got off her motorcycle and shook her raven hair out of the helmet. Since she'd begun living at the house, she'd put on a little weight, but only to go from scrawny emo-kid to beautiful gothic princess. She reached over to undo her saddlebags and Mythos couldn't help but admire how she'd filled out those pants. She straightened and waved to him. He smiled and waved back, even when he felt the odd pangs again. But what to do?
"Maybe you need a release?"
Mythos looked up from his sandwich later that day. Loki went on with some paperwork as if he hadn't said anything.
"What do you mean, release?"
Loki looked up.
"Release," he repeated. "When was the last time you went down to The Vault?"
Mythos stopped and thought about it for a moment. It indeed had been a long time since he'd gone to play. Of course, he hadn't really felt like it either, which probably was the reason he hadn't thought about it. He nodded slowly as he took his next bite. Two days later, Mythos pulled his MG into the parking area of The Vault. Once inside, familiar sights and smells assailed him and he smiled. It had been a long time.
And yet...something was off. He shook it off as he met Lady Emily. A leggy redhead with a big nose, they'd played with each other a couple years earlier, but she had gone off and gotten herself married in the meantime. Mythos looked into his Glennfiddich, afterward.
"Ya know," Emily began as she tried to smooth her hair. "You certainly weren't any worse for wear that I could tell."
"Oh, he's always fine," a voice said out of the gloom. "But he's a constant worry about himself. Again, as always."
"Momma!" Mythos jumped up and gave the large woman a big hug. "How are you, girl? I haven't seen you in a dog's age!"
He moved aside as she hitched up her corset and slid into the booth across from Emily. The booth shifted slightly, but held. Mythos looked over and tapped Gary, who spurted some kind of oil on the floor as he nodded. Emily came around the booth and gave the larger matron a hug as well. Gary shuffled around and set a plate in front of her, redolent in a ham sandwich. Mythos shook his head and chuckled.
"Shut your tentacled face," she smirked over the mayonnaise. "It's one of the final pleasures I get out of life, you little bastard. Not all of us are immortal."
"Cassie, I'm not immortal. You know that," he smirked. "But I'm glad you're here."
"Myth," Emily said. "Terry is here now-"
"Go on, honey," he sighed. "I'm sorry I wasn't-"
Emily reached around the small booth and pulled Mythos into a gentle, but firm, hug.
"I'll be more than happy to play with you again," she said softly to him. "You please me. I just wish I could give to you as well, but I'm sure you'll take care."
She set a kiss and flitted off into the dark, multi-colored dance floor. Momma Cass just watched as Mythos sat back down again. He raised an eyebrow at her and she chuckled. She wiped her mouth and waved him away as she drank her Cherry Coke.
"Now, my little Elder God," she looked at him appraisingly. "What was that all about? I've never known you to have problems performing."
He might originally think about what choice did he have to tell her. To tell anyone, really. But he did have choices. He had the choice not to tell anyone, to hide his feelings away, but that had never been like him. He enjoyed his feelings. He enjoyed being awake at this time, just when humans were beginning to get interesting! So...Mythos began to talk. Of Tracey and how they'd met. She chuckled and finished her sandwich as he finished his story. She waved to Gary, who nodded as steam blew out the back of his helmet.
"Perhaps you're beginning to think of her as more than a playmate?"
Mythos began to contradict her, then realized something.
"You know," he said thoughtfully. "She never really was a playmate."
"Oh?" Momma Cassie raised an eyebrow at him. "Have you tried?"
Gary squeaked and hissed as he set another ham sandwich down in front of her and swept up the other plate.
"...no," Mythos had to admit.
She smiled and patted him in his head before picking up the next sandwich, "Maybe you should?"
***
Part Two, later. ;)