Deni Perfide
Member
Deni’s consciousness hurtled through space. Dizziness overwhelmed him so much that he constantly felt like he was about to nauseate, except he couldn’t feel his body. Panic surged through him as the sensation of falling and spinning endlessly overpowered everything else.
Where am I? he thought desperately. What’s happening? This is horrible, I have to get out of here. I have to get out. I have to-
Relief swept over Deni as he felt solid ground beneath his body. His eyes scanned his surroundings. Something was wrong. He had no control over his body. He could see the stone buildings of a city crumbling around him, hear the screams of people dying in every direction. When he caught a glimpse of his hands, however, he realised it was not his body at all.
Claws! Some sort of… exoskeleton.
He tried to gasp.
I’d recognise those claws anywhere! I’m Misericorde!
“Eínai óra.”
The somber voice was also familiar. Misericorde turned her head. A robed Janu stood before her, a tall gangly figure with grey skin and thin black hair.
That’s Eleos! Aquila’s arse, what is happening to me?
Hordes of Janu ran for their lives. Some were covered in blood, others carried injured loved ones, tears streaming down their grey faces. It was horrifying to watch. Deni couldn’t help but feel their anguish.
One woman grasped at Eleos’ robes.
“Sóse mas! Parakaloúme!”
She fell to her knees and wept.
“To móno mou lachtára.”
Misericorde approached the woman and pulled her into an embrace. A red light flashed just above Deni’s vision. Her halo, no doubt. A few bright pulses and the woman’s body went limp.
The scene began to fade.
Once again the world was drained of colour. Deni was sent swirling through the void, spinning for what seemed like years until the next vision appeared. He returned to Misericorde and watched through her eyes as she murdered another unfortunate soul. Then everything was black. Again and again the cycle continued. The velen was forced to watch the deaths of dozens of the Januin people at the hands of the daemon whose heart he had taken.
Perhaps she is trying to reach out to me, he thought. All these mercy killings, so they wouldn’t have to suffer. I understand why she did it.
It might have been his imagination as he continued to fall through the black, but he could have sworn that someone was there. Could they sense him? Could they hear his thoughts?
Misericorde?
Suddenly the velen had a body again. He immediately brought his hands up to his face. A great sigh left him at the sight of his webbed fingers. His blue eyes scanned all around him. The world was still an inky black in every direction, but at least he wasn’t falling anymore. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was standing on an endless sea of black, but he tried not to think about it too much. Ahead of him a figure emerged from the shadows. He didn’t need to see the mockery of feminine form and bony claws to know who it was. The radiant halo above her head was enough. It illuminated the somber expression on her face.
“Yeah, I see why you did it now,” the velen said out loud, keeping his gaze fixed on the daemon opposite him. He couldn’t help but match her sorrowful stare. The moisture disappeared from his mouth. He licked his cracked lips.
“It was your own version of mercy.”
Deni placed one foot in front of the other, meandering slowly towards Misericorde in a wide arc. He remembered the first time he caught sight of her beneath the waves, when he was helping to reclaim the cannons from that sunken ship. She never attacked him when she could have. She had seemed more curious than anything else.
“You were interested in me from the very moment you laid eyes on me. Why? Did you know this was going to happen?"
The blackness shifted. A scene unfolded to one side of the two figures. It was one of Deni’s memories. Every fiber of him froze at the sight of it.
The face of a violet-scaled velen through the watery vision of Deni himself. Tears streamed from her golden eyes down her cheeks. Her lips pursed, mouthing one word.
Why?
Emotion flooded Deni. Pain and hurt. Guilt.
“You betrayed us, Rae,” he managed. “You know the rules.”
“I didn’t! Please, Deni!”
He wanted to turn away but even if he had, her face was already burned into his mind.
“I love you!”
Deni’s jaw quivered.
“I love you too,” he croaked, “but you betrayed us and I have to do what is right.”
With that, he turned away. The view of the dark alleyway did nothing to lessen the pain of her expression in his mind.
“Deni!”
She screamed.
“DENI!”
Blink.
The sight of a bottle was brought down slowly. Papers were scattered across the floor, tables and cabinets overturned, windows smashed. The old gang hideout was a mess and Deni sat in the middle of it. Drunk.
He shifted suddenly, awkwardly.
“Gotta go the pisser,” he muttered to himself. He slipped on a piece of paper and crashed down in a heap. As did his mental state.
Deni sobbed into his hands.
“I love her,” he wept. “I love her and I killed her!”
Blink.
A dark night in a shoddy apartment. Noise filled the streets during the early hours as music emanated from a nearby tavern. Empty bottles were scattered around the room with the remains of a dozen folium cigarettes. Deni’s vision shifted to his hands. They were covered in dried blood. And they were inserting a syringe into his arm. The drugs slipped into his bloodstream and the rush hit him moments later. It only amplified what was already there. Another sip of whiskey from the bottle. More tears slid down his cheeks.
“I couldn’t save her,” Deni whispered to himself. “Couldn’t save any of them.”
He was so exhausted. The initial sensation from the opiates turned from a false elation to thunderous anxiety. A dominating hopelessness filled him with anguish.
“I... loved her.”
Through wet eyes he picked up a small cylinder. The lid cracked open with one twist. He emptied the pills onto his hand. Seven. He slid them into a bottle of whiskey and tipped his head back, pouring all of the remaining liquid and the tablets down his throat.
Deni gasped deeply, as if breathing air for the first time. The blackness returned, as did the silence. And Deni’s ability to move. The velen was glad that it was over. Watching that back had been taxing on his emotional state, no matter how long ago it had happened. Rubbing his eyes on his forearm he brought his gaze back to the arch-daemon.
“Oh, so you saw that in me, did you?” he said in a croaky voice. Oddly, he followed with a laugh. “It just so happened that it was the fourth month I had been unable to afford my rent and the landlord let himself in to check up on me. If he hadn’t, I’d be dead. But that was a long time ago. I was young and stupid. Now, I’m old and stupid, but wise enough to know that life is better than death.”
The pelagian’s eyes narrowed as the smile dropped a little.
“I bet you didn’t think I’d be the one to cause your death. Sorry about that. You’ve set so many people free, rather than let them suffer. The least I could do was offer you the same.”
An ear-splitting screech echoed through the ethereal darkness as Misericorde charged Deni. Abruptly, he realised he was naked.
How am I supposed to fight a daemon with no weapons or armour? Even clothes would be nice!
The most the velen could do was grasp her wrists as her form trampled him to the ground. His muscles bulged as her razor-sharp claws snapped at his throat. His teeth ground together under the strain. One slip and he would be dead. But she was so strong. He couldn’t defend himself forever.
“Let’s face it,” he managed to groan. “I’ve got your heart. You’re stuck with me.”
Deni kicked his leg and twisted his body. The pair rolled across the floor until Deni eventually shifted one arm. With a claw free, Misericorde slashed at his side, gashing beneath his ribs. A guttural growl in his primal tongue escaped him, but both of his hands grasped her other claw. With all of his strength, he rolled once more, landing on top of the daemon and clasping her throat with her own pincer.
“You’re… mine!”
A sickening crunch and the darkness enveloped them both.
The velen felt his back hit the floor, though there was no pain. Dark flecks appeared everywhere he looked. Slowly they faded, but his vision remained blurry. There were sounds, voices, but they seemed so distant, like they came from behind layers of stone. Something arched gently around his shoulders and urged him to sit up. An arm? A humanoid figure pulled him into an embrace. Fiery dark orange locks of hair shrouded his sight as it returned. Over the woman’s shoulder - he was certain that she was a woman - he made out a tall slender shape that he recognised. Beyond that, dark walls of fog, almost black but with a tint of pink, constantly swirling. He blinked slowly as he remembered where he was.
“Hlífa,” he whispered. She pulled out of the embrace and parted those plump red lips for a smile.
“You’re alright,” she said with a relieved sigh. He only just made out the words through the ringing in his head. He was thankful for the fact that pain didn’t exist here.
“Oh, wow,” that smooth, seductive voice carried. Hlífa stepped back and the she-daemon in her emerald-scaled dress crouched down to his level. “That was a close one.”
Her fingers grasped at his hand and turned his palm toward her. Deni jumped at her soft touch, but shivered when he saw what she was looking at. A crude circle as black as can be, jagged edges crisscrossing the shape. Steam rose from the mark that had been seared into his palm.
“You were lucky.”
“The orb?” Deni asked quickly. A familiar enlil in a black suit crouched next to the daemoness and offered her the orb. Immediately Deni noticed that something was different about it. It was no longer clear. A pink mist swirled inside of the glass-like material.
“It repelled itself from both of us and you were flung over here,” she replied in that unconcerned tone. She might as well have been talking about the weather. After she had finished examining his hand, she rose to her feet with surprising elegance despite the length of her high heels. An excited glint appeared in her eye.
“I guess we should see if it worked. Why don’t you test it out on Hlífa.”
As soon as Deni was handed the artifact, he shot a worried glance at the Arctoan spurii. She seemed surprised. And concerned, with good reason. Neither her nor the velen, not even the daemonic hostess knew what would happen.
“Don’t be shy,” the fuchsia-skinned immortal urged. The comment seemed to be aimed at both of them. “Are you forgetting that pain doesn’t exist here? If anything goes wrong, I’ll be here to clean up the mess. So don’t worry.”
Hlífa nodded to her mistress and turned back to Deni with a more determined stare.
“Let’s do this then,” she said with that northern slur, gesturing the pelagian toward herself. “I’ve likely had worse.”
Deni approached her and shifted his eyes to the pink mist swirling inside of the orb. Pain might not have been existent, but his stomach still twisted into knots. He swallowed his nerves with the lump in the back of his throat.
“Alright,” he said in a purposefully solid tone. He brought himself to stare into those emerald green eyes. His hand rubbed her bare shoulder reassuringly as he felt for that barrier just beyond the edge of his thought, like he had done before. This time was different. There was something else there.
The orb? He pulled at that void.
Hlífa brought her hand to her head and closed her eyes. Deni wished he could do the same, but the hand that didn’t hold the artifact felt like it was being glued to her shoulder. It was a strange dizzying feeling. His vision was shifting. One moment he could see black, the next was Hlífa again. Then came something else. Emotions. Not his. Worry, apprehension. Excitement. Questions. What is happening? This feels so odd. They weren’t his thoughts. Then he could feel a hand caressing his forehead. Only there wasn’t. But Hlífa was caressing hers.
As soon as he could, he tore his hand away from her shoulder and reeled back. The dizziness subsided and astonishment took hold. When the pale spurii opened her eyes, he could see himself through them. She was just as shocked. He could see everything she could see, feel everything she could feel. Blue eyes glanced at the black mark on her shoulder, identical to the one on his hand. He opened his mouth to ask if it hurt, but he knew it didn’t. A slight, uncertain grin appeared on his face. Both of his arms shifted behind his back.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” he asked her.
“Five,” the Arctoan woman replied. “Two on your left hand, three on your right.”
It worked for her too. She could see, hear and feel anything he experienced.
“What number am I thinking of?”
“Sixty-three,” Deni responded. Both of them burst out laughing and threw themselves into each other’s arms. As the laughter died, Deni felt something else. Longing. He was already growing fond of the spurii woman and she felt the same. He had not used the daemoness’ mind-manipulating technique since becoming connected to Misericorde’s heart. Hlífa’s feelings were true. At least he thought they were. Who knew in that place?
“It doesn’t work like that,” she said into his ear suddenly. “Only she can alter perceptions to such a level. You only amplified what was already there. If I truly did not want to, I would not have kissed you.”
It would take a while to get used to sharing thoughts with another, but it was not entirely unpleasant.
“Well that’s a relief,” he muttered and pulled out of the embrace. That radiating confidence suddenly appeared with his deep grin as he turned to the ever-amused mistress.
“I think I’d like to take that private room now.”
Nervous excitement churned through Hlífa’s stomach and Deni’s mind.