Luiz was in my office chair when I arrived at Morgenstern and Clark the next morning. He greeted me with two words:
“Nora Bleu,” the Hellhound’s voice was full of pride.
“That name cannot be real.” I muttered as I walked over to my desk drawers and deposited my handbag.
“She used to go by Lenora Eloise Hiscock.” Luiz offered helpfully. “Changed her name by deed poll,”
“Hiscock?” I laughed. “I wonder where the origins of that name began.”
Luiz stood up and watched as I picked up my laptop. We walked to the morning meeting together.
“What are your plans?” Luiz eyed me dubiously.
“I don’t know what you expect from me,” I rolled my eyes. “Do you want me to rub my hands together and laugh maniacally?”
“You are a descendent of the First Circle.” Luiz said in a low voice. Careful to not be overhead by the humans that had begun to make their way to the conference room. “Surely you want a child of Lucifer to be born.”
I relaxed my face into a picture of sanguine calm. “Of course.”
If he knew that I was lying, he didn’t say anything.
It was useful to have an eidetic memory when you told as many lies as I did.
Deception was in the fabric of my creation. I had heard the term 'pathological liar' banded about in the past. I did not know if I had it in me to give myself over to another. Honesty meant vulnerability. Only one person knew the true me, and he had abandoned me. Pushed me away.
I felt worthless without Luc.
I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. I was not without worth. I was powerful in my own right. I could not allow my thoughts to go off on a negative tangent.
Rosen Gallery in Shoreditch was an old warehouse, abundantly decorated with stick figure graffiti. Dubstep trundled out of the overhead speakers and the expansive concrete space smelt like patchouli and white sage.
Sculptures of burnt and twisted metal were sporadically set out around the warehouse. Sunlight filtered through the dusty glass pane windows overhead.
A few stragglers hung around the gallery, admiring the modern art. I was not impressed though.
I had felt her presence before I saw her. Nora Bleu. Her chestnut hair held a shine that should be envied. I had not seen her eye colour before as she had been blindfolded but her irises were a stunning aquamarine.
She wore an expensive pearl choker around her neck. I wondered briefly if it was a collar but knew that it wasn’t appropriate to ask while she was at work.
Ms Bleu dressed entirely in black, with her hair twisted into a French braid that stopped below her shoulders.
When her eyes met mine, my facial expression did not change from its usual deadly disdain. I allowed my gaze to rake from her toes up to her sparkling eyes. The colour of the Mediterranean ocean with flecks of gold. Better yet was the tarnished and brutalised innocent that lay behind them. I was fixated.
Luc would love her and so I hated her.
My current eye colour was a shade of dark honey that contrasted my hair. I hadn’t thought about adding golden flecks before. I quirked my head to the side as I stared into her irises and imprinted the colours into my memory for later.
The human girl was obviously uncomfortable, she stepped back hesitantly. A natural reaction.
“Hello, welcome to the Rosen Gallery,” Nora Bleu said cautiously. “Would you like more information about the current exhibits?”
I smiled demurely and kept my mouth shut as I stepped closer to my prey.
“I’m interested in ... That one.” I gestured to the sculpture closest to us with the sweep of my hand. Nora’s eyes darted around and she licked her bottom lip. I had picked the moment correctly, with few witnesses.
Leading me to the office, I quickly realised that it was not fear that caused her reaction. It was arousal.
I shook my head to myself. The human was harmless. We walked to her desk, following her hurried pace. She wiggled her mouse to start up her computer. When her eyes met mine, I pounced.
Launching a mental attack, I ripped through her brain as quickly as possible.
The girl dropped to the ground, a droplet of blood trickled down the side of her neck as she bled from her ear. She wasn’t dead, but she was not alive anymore either.
I took a deep calming breath as I felt my power retract back to my fingertips. I felt high. Invincible. The problem with using First Circle magic was that it was addictive. Unparalleled.
I roughed up my hair to add to the farce and then I flung myself from the office, forcing panic into my voice. “Quick! Someone help!” I squealed in fear as I ran through the gallery and away from Nora Bleu.
Drinking hard liquor at the Connaught Bar in Mayfair was soothing and familiar. I had shrivelled back into my shell of humanity, unable to stomach the connection to Hell. The power and the high it gave me. The overwhelming darkness that tinged the edge of my vision.
When had I gone soft? Maybe it was when I was no longer of use to my master anymore.
Every contract that I had secured had been made void. What was my purpose in the Human Realities if I couldn’t take souls for the First Circle?
Luc had still not shown his face. It had been two centuries.
I swirled the amber coloured liquid and took an appreciative sip.
My metabolism did not burn off the alcohol as quickly when I was disconnected from Hell. My head swam as my drunken stupor disappeared like soluble aspirin. I knocked the rest of my Bourbon back and circled my finger to the bartender for another.
Someone slid into the barstool beside me. It was Samuel. He smelt like warm wood smoke. His energy was a pulsating beacon of lust and comfort.
“Are you stalking me, Mr Rose?” I said haughtily. The bartender placed my drink onto the polished bar. I knocked it back without a care and set the empty tumbler on top of the napkin coaster.
“Am I in your bad books?” Samuel playfully pouted, his jovial expression was hampered by the sparkling darkness that his eyes promised.
“Whatever for?” I shrugged, my buzz had made me callous. The last time I had seen him, he had revealed his great secret of Incubi heritage. Now I acted like I did not care.
Samuel Rose smirked and ordered a drink. “So we shall play it like that, shall we?”
I hid my smugness by taking a sip of my drink. “I was upset when I saw you with a pet,” I admitted.
Samuel’s expression hardened as if he had not expected that response. It was honesty, and part of me screamed internally for succumbing to the man.
“Nora Bleu and I do not have a sexual relationship as such. I feed from her lust. She thrives on being controlled. I don’t need to fuck her to feed from her.”
“So you said.” I nodded, narrowing my eyes.
“I am not a nice man.” Samuel warned in a carefully measured tone. “I have done things that would make you weep.”
I turned back to the bar and stared at the mirrored surface over the array of liquor bottles. I said nothing to fill the silence.
“I herd and traffic humans. I create whores by giving them my blood. Making them addicted to my existence. I could crush your windpipe with the flick of my wrist.” He whispered, his finger brushed my bottom lip and captured it. He pulled it hard, but the sting travelled directly to my core as I flinched.
“I can make you cum, even if you beg me not to. Without even touching you. I hold the magic of all things amorous and forbidden.” Samuel purred.
I was wet and needy and part of me hated him for it. Despised the man that held such confidence over every facet of his existence. His arrogance said that he could have me if he wanted and I would fold.
“Why are you telling me this?” I whispered and licked my bottom lip. I took his thumb in my mouth and sucked, imagining it to be his cock. My eyes fluttered and I moaned.
Was his magic affecting me? Or was it the man?
“I’m telling you because you won’t remember anything I’ve said in the morning.”
The bastard wanted to scrub my memories? I flinched in disgust and flung myself back from him so quickly that my stool upended and crashed to the floor. I stood up and watched it fall with a bounce.
The incubus did not know that I was immune to his power. That I could snap his neck with a thought. That I was older than his existence itself.
My fists clenched and my eyes sparkled with rage. I tried to open my mouth to speak but my jaw was stiff and my anger was a physical weight on my tongue.
Samuel looked worried and I checked to see if my innate instincts had forced my body to connect to my magic.
It hadn’t.
The incubus glanced around quickly to see who had witnessed our exchange.
“Go back to your pet.” I said through clenched teeth. “If you touch me again, if you try to make me forget, I will end you.”
How dare he try to strong arm me? How dare he threaten me?
“As if you could stop me, sweetheart,” Samuel's lips twitched at one side to hide a smirk. “And as for my pet? I just might. After all, who else would I bed this evening?”
I wanted to laugh. He would not be inside of his pet any time soon. I had eaten away at her mind and left only a heartbeat. Did he not know or was he saving face?
I bared my teeth in a snarl and walked away. As my Louboutin’s clacked against the marble floor, I wondered if my hot and cold routine would upend my plans.
When I exited the Connaught, and was met with balmy summer air, I decided that I couldn’t care less.
As I walked, Samuel appeared behind me, as if out of thin air and I was ashamed to say that he made me jump.
Samuel eyed me like I was a tasty meal. “I surveyed the surveillance of my gallery in Shoreditch, Ms Clark.” He said in a dry tone. “I will find out what you did to Nora. I know you were there.”
Samuel Rose got under my skin and I hated that I allowed it to happen.