Zelphina pulled the bar’s door open and maneuvered through the mostly male patronage. A lot of eyes in her direction, but a predominant respectfulness among the ensemble. She received smiles, which she only returned with a polite nod. And the one gentleman who offered to buy her a drink was wise enough to accept her declaration that she was meeting someone at face value.
She spotted him at the pool table, testing out the physics of the game. Demons were naturally drawn to games, but they never played an opponent unless they were confident they would win, and skilled at pretending like they wouldn’t. His skill was not where he wished it to be, hence the round of solitaire.
Zelphina set her palms down on the edge of the table, across from where he was setting up his shot. Smack. The cue ball hopped into a backspin, arcing around the ball in the way and sinking the one he was aiming for. “I call next game.”
He smirked, only glancing up as high as the writing across her chest. “Your highness,” he sneered, “Is the creature dead?”
“I wouldn’t be standing here if it weren’t.”
He rechalked the tip of his cue stick. “I meant the human female you travel with.”
“You wouldn’t be standing here if she were.”
He snickered. “Are we really going to do this around all of these simians?”
“It’s up to you if we do this at all. I’m here to talk.”
“How celestial of you.” He struck the cue ball again, clacking it into a pair of stripes, only sinking the first one. His eye twitched at the miscalculation.
“I don’t believe you revealed your name before you left us to die.”
“Correct. Zel, was it?”
“Zelphina,” she said without hesitation. “Of Lotus.”
“Oh, you’re one of Theridae’s.”
“She’s my great aunt by contract only. I’m a first generation.”
“Any kids?”
“No.” The word came out of Zelphina’s mouth with so much punctuation she drew him into an eye-contact that he’d been actively avoiding. The cue ball bounced at a wide angle as he missed his shot.
He set his stick against the table and calmly reloaded the triangular rack. “Lotesians have the reputation of a cold wrath.”
“We had a merciful side. Our Maetria didn’t outlive her species by behaving like one of them.”
He removed the rack and rolled the cue ball to her, relinquishing the opening shot. “After her highness.”
“Stop calling me that,” said Zelphina. She struck the tip of her stick against the cue, scattering the numbered spheres across the table. None made their way into the pockets.
“With your reputation, I would have expected a more impressive break than that.”
“I’m not here to win,” she explained. “I’m here to talk.”
“I can listen for a game,” he said, stepping up to the table and dropping the twelve into the side pocket.
“If you won’t reveal a name, can you tell me where you came from?”
One careful shot; the nine and the thirteen sank in sequence. “I see no reason to reveal anything about myself.” His next shot struck the fourteen, which bounced a few times in the corner but refused to obey his will.
“Then I’ll keep it simple,” said Zelphina. “A Lotesian founder came through the rift. If you have any desire for any purpose beyond mere existence, now is the opening.”
“Are you trying to rebuild your kingdom on this primitive rock?”
“I don’t care what she does. I’m only making the offer she’s asked me to make.”
He leaned against the wall, waiting for Zelphina to take her shot. “And what offer is that?”
“I just made you the offer. Join her, or don’t.”
“And the benefits and penalties?”
Zelphina smacked the cue ball with little attentiveness, sending it bouncing around the table without progressing the game. “Do you have something else to attend to?” She slid a business card out of her back pocket and set it on the edge. “She’s using ‘Molly’ as her moniker. How long do you think you can survive on your own?”
He gave her a snide glance and fired the cue ball off the table right at Zelphina’s nose. She pulled it out of the air without flinching. “Good reflexes,” he said.
“Scratch,” she muttered, wiping the ball clean before setting it back on the table. “The only people coming for you are going to be hunting you. There’s not a better offer. And there’s no commitment beyond a conversation. Do the wise thing. Make the call.” She sent the cue ball over to the pocket to retrieve the fourteen from its convenient dunking.
He read the card without touching it. “If I say no?”
“Then consider yourself warned. That human body you’re inhabiting is a victim. I hope he was a horrible person, because one thing ‘Molly’ and I share is a soft spot for innocent blood. The wrath of Lotesians only begins in the cold.”
Two careful shots later and ten and the fifteen were no longer in play. “So you garrison your own kind,” he grinned.
“I have no kind. I have purpose.”
He set aim on the damned fourteen again. “Which is?”
“This fragile world cannot protect itself from us. It is our responsibility to do so in its stead or destroy ourselves.”
At those words he began laughing so hard he accidentally hit the cue ball into the corner pocket. “That has got to be the most hilarious statement I’ve ever heard. How do you figure it is our responsibility to self destruct?”
“The ‘creature’ I travel with is Caris. This is her world. You and I stand upon it because she trusted in something greater than her, or us.”
“And what do you propose I owe her for this moment of foolishness?”
Zelphina stepped into his personal space and leaned in as close as she could without touching him. “Nothing.”
Nothing is the most uncomfortable topic for a demon. Cause and effect, action and consequence, purchase and price, all concepts the world of darkness survives upon. But nothing is not the same as darkness. Darkness is something. Nothing is the absence of everything, including darkness. And with the power to invoke an unease in the most comfortable of demonic presences, a well-timed use of the word is enough to give any cognitive demon pause for thought.
The offer of something for nothing is an alarm. Demons prone to the lure of transaction dare to dream of making a deal where they gain something for nothing, but only those who are skilled in the art of subtext are able to concoct such a deal. As such, it is unheard of to be openly offered one.
In this case, the demon with the pool cue had been prepared to hear whatever cost the one called Zelphina would suggest he owed her for the boon he did not ask for, as it would be a fair argument. But she claimed he owed nothing, after what he perceived to be an insistence of gifting. “What do you mean, ‘nothing’?”
“I should think it self explanatory,” said Zelphina.
“Then why bring it up?”
Zelphina carefully placed the cue ball where she wanted it. “Do you know what the one commonality among every demonic being is?”
“I’m sure any answer I provide will be insufficient to you.”
“It’s a desire for freedom, but a complete lack of comprehension as to what freedom feels like. We only know we crave it. We never know when we have it.”
“And your point?”
“Our existence on this world is a gift. Regardless of how we feel about it, this gift is what freedom feels like. The demons of Lotus were the only ones, to my extensive knowledge, who figured this out before they damned themselves irreparably to a new master.”
“And where is your beloved Lotus now?”
“You’re missing the point.” Zelphina tapped the business card with her pool stick. “That phone call costs you nothing. It’s in your nature to make the wrong choice. Learn to listen to the nature of someone who can make the right one.”
“I’m four balls ahead,” he smirked. “In the interest of...interest, why don’t you show me just how much you’ve been holding yourself back.”
Zelphina rubbed the tip of her stick with chalk. “I can win this game in six shots.”
“Four. You do that, I call Molly. You take your fifth shot, I walk.”
“Agreed,” said Zelphina. She did it in three.
