(2.1) Cold Shower Needed

Year Unknown, Las Vegas Wastes

Shadows flickered across Dmitri’s eyelids during their rapid twitching. Torrential veins raced under his sun darkened skin. Cold sweat gathered in droplets on his brow. Blood flowed freely from palms pierced by his own dark talons. A steeled jaw dared to crush elongated teeth in its rancor.

Dmitri’s trance bound him unshakably. As such he was oblivious to the company he now shared. The creeping shadow snaked across the detritus floor, halting when it silhouetted Dmitri’s torso. The owner of the shade made not so much as a decibel in its movement, pausing to allow the pseudo-sleeping man to awaken.

Minutes passed without the man rousing from his trance. In fact, it seemed to be growing stronger as the retractable claws slowly inched their way effortlessly deeper into Dmitri’s hands.

A coaxing hand, laden with silken cloth, brushed across the weathered face of the man. Gracefully tracing old scars that had long since healed.

Then, it slapped him back into the world. Dmitri woke, or rather breached, from his torpor with an explosion of teeth and fists, his aggression assaulting only air.

“My, my aren’t you the sound, slumbering child,” an all too familiar, yet alien, voice taunted from behind a concrete column.

A young woman gingerly stepped, or more accurately floated, from her cover a few feet away. She was dressed in wisps of white silk, dutifully teasing prying eyes.

Dmitri knew that saying anything to her was more dangerous to him than any bullet ever could be. This woman could’ve convinced Caesar to abandon his campaign and take up pig farming.

Like water flowing across marble, she closed the gap between them and gently touched a hand to his shoulder.

“Why the somber face my dear? We have been apart for ages, are you distraught to see me again?”

Her voice might as well have been coated in honey and clad in gold.

Dmitri dared to peer down the proverbial cliff that lay before him, but cautiously kept himself back lest he fall.

“Why have you come back and what business do you have with me any more?”

She pretended to be struck by the words. Her skin aged before his eyes into someone more near the age of fifty.

“You vex me my dear. This is no time for spite, I have come back to see how my favorite pet is faring,” her hair shifted then, towards an alabaster hue.

Dmitri’s head swiveled to follow her every movement as she walked around him. Even in the guise of an elderly woman her beauty was still perplexing. His eyes displaying an internal battle against her mesmerizing presence.

“Seems that you have not changed much since we last met,” her voice and smile befitting a school girl more than her current guise.

“Stop toying around and tell me what you want,” Dmitri responded sharply.

His footing at the cliff-edge slipped.

The woman stepped back, her warming touch leaving his shoulder colder than winter. The sun caught her hair, turning it blazing red. As well, her body took the form of a younger, but completely different, woman again.

“I am the master of trickery and deceit, leave me to my ways,” She protested in anger, “Millennia before you were conceived, I razed empires and sacked Kings. If you wish my blessing you’ll not direct my actions.”

“Fine, Babushka, if that’s what you’re still calling yourself,” in a much more toned down voice, “What is it that you’re offering me.”

That imaginary cliff loomed before him.

In a calmer demeanor she smiled and ran delicate fingers through, now, golden locks.

“I do so miss the old titles,” her eyes sparkled and skin shivered, “Slayer of Phol, Progenitor to the Feral.”

Dmitri could easily see her goosebumps through the gossamer silk. He was relieved, even if he didn’t show it, to see that the dangerous nature had left from his guest.

After her nostalgia faded she continued. “Three nights from now another one of my many children will come to test you. This is what I offer; release.”

The word was laced in sweet venom.

His eyes narrowed, she had already enthralled him.

Her smile returned at his submission, “Release which you seek so diligently. Fail in the test and death will be thy release. Succeed and you will be given truer escape from this dead world. Do you accept my proposal?”

“I accept.” He did his best to hide the grin.

And so, Dmitri lunged himself into the chasm of the cliff.

She stepped over by his side.

“Then it is agreed,” her voice was matched in its enticing only by the brush of her lips against his ear.

Dmitri closed his eyes to allow himself a moments enjoyment and when they opened he found himself alone again.