Unfathomable [Gate in the Deep]

[Gildarts]

Shimmering, oh, there was the water. Gleaming with sunlight. It was warm here, much warmer than that hellhole of a verse in the Pale Moors. Not that she didn’t like it there, but the victims there were just too easy. Poor little Marco, and his abusive father, Martin. Here, people were smiling happily, basking their pale skin in the sun, she liked to rip their smiles away. It was nice here, the endless potential. Though, the crossroads demon looked out of place in her all-black jumpsuit covering every layer of her skin, tightly without wrinkle, cupping every nook of her petit curves. Soon she shed her outer skin, the jacket, revealing a black tank top which showed every smooth mound of her body, and continued to strut along the town’s edge, her dark eyes looking off into the distance at the ocean.

It looked familiar, in a past life sort of way, but becoming a demon has a way of making even the most moral human forget. Now the sable-haired woman didn’t feel remorse, nor humiliation, nor any sense of triumphant glory as she walked with a click in her shoes over the cobblestone streets, and drew the eyes of many men and a few women, who liked the way she looked. It made men, innocent on the outside, in their business suits, or the women, quaint in their sundresses, immediately think of the whores they wanted to be. Demons of course, carry a certain confident and seductive atmosphere, for she walked like she had everything anyone could ever want in the world and many lusting and greedy eyes followed, ready to believe if they gave her something more, she could give them back all that she desired.

A toss of her softly curled hair and she had a few suitors walk up to her, thinking there was a chance to seduce her in for the upcoming evening. None of them had power, she could tell in the simplicity of their gait, or the way their back slouched as they laughed. Many of them had boring stories written on their minds and in their hearts. He’d been cheated on, she’d been doing his husband’s brother, and Jimbo over there, the hotel owner where all these affairs usually happened, was recording it all on camera and selling it for profit.

All of them were fools. Easily falling victim to her insidious charms, and this demon liked a challenge. Plus, from what she could tell, none of them were Primes. She needed to find a place which dealt information, or a person. Maybe at the pier? But they looked like simpletons too. So she opted for the tavern, where at least, the lights would be dimmer, and make her easier on the eyes of those who could see her true form.

Creaaaaaaak!

The door opened. She held her lips in a ruby line across her face, as she made a beeline for the barkeep. “Hi, what can I getcha?”

“No drinks today,” she said, eyeing the glass already in his hand, “I need some help, I’m trying to find a friend of mine.”

“Help? A friend?” he parroted and the woman procured a phone, which she had screen shotted a part of the video the little boy had shown her of the woman called ‘Christa Adams’ and she was powerful, for a human.

“Her name is Christa Adams, she’s the one who found Omni with a group of other secondaries, they say she’s immortal now.” And there she was, out in the open, her desires too. She would see where this would get her.

“Well, I don’t know if I seen a girl like that, but there was a fellow in ‘ere earlier talkin’ about how he was going to see Omni. Methinks he was a Prime.” Her interest was piqued. The demon snickered. A Prime among this cesspool of despair and hopeless people. Perfect. Time to track him down.

“Oh?” she said, her tone playing at being acutely interested, “Can you tell me where might I find this gentlemen?”

“Well, I sent him outta here looking for the Rapture, at the bottom of the ocean, so I reckon he’ll be needing a vessel,” the barkeep informed, his brow knitted together with thought, “He looked real peculiar like, I don’t think he was from here.”

“Any particular features?” she inquired, business-like now, it was impossible not to respect the tone that filled the space between them.

“Uh, yeah, but just take my word for it lady, you’ll know it when you see him,” she thanked him for the tip and dashed off. To the pier, where there would be boats, where she could find this man. She hadn’t asked his name, Alex realized as the door closed behind her, Oh well, I’ll just ask him when I find him. Peculiar-looking, huh?

...

A wheezing cough, a stumble too close, a brush of fabric on her arm. The woman -demon- was repulsed. She was once human, but since then she never had to cough, or sway, or let herself get too close in a clump of people. To touch who she didn’t want to touch. Alex’s face remained neutral throughout the entire affair, though her skin could’ve been peeling off, layer by layer, sliding slimily off by a razor or some roughly blood-burning sand-paper. Encountering the lowest of lows would always be a noxious, erosive process. There was one highlight of it all, one woman, holding a potted plant, a leafy forsythia, dropped it and gasped as Alex walked by.

The demon turned all too quickly, to greet the woman with a smile, “Oh my God...”

Obviously, the woman saw her true face, “Quite the contrary, actually.”

A friendly grin rolled off her ruby lips, while the woman, shoes now covered in soil, could only arm herself with a grimace. Alex continued her stroll, feeling a little lighter as her feet carried her to the wooden steps of the pier.

Something about the coming events seemed so easy to the woman, and it wasn’t just the fact that she couldn’t be inflicted with the annoyance of fear. Perhaps that it was coming along so fluently, she couldn’t help but ride the wave. A calm curve soothed one half of her face, as she approached, clunking along the dense wood of the boardwalk, and walking just above the water. Her eyes slid from one side to the other, angling at everyone in between.

Boats. They had nice designs and pinned up sails that would help their soft shapes glide over water. Boats were nice, that was all. A means to get from one place to another. A meaningless means. If she had the need, she would’ve yawned. A few sailors whistled to her as she passed, it gave her no satisfaction, nor did it feed any part of her that could ever be called woman. Her eyes stayed sharply forward, pinpointing her prize, a tall man with peculiar looking hair. Yes, surely that was him. There was a man he seemed to be waiting for. Or something like that.

Her stride carried her to him, it was forceful, vehement, and unrelenting until she yielded just two invasive feet from his face. The clack of her shoes halted. Magus was currently being greeted by a sailor on his right, who had arrived, seemingly just a moment ago, with a crew of men who knew not the dangers of lingering eyes. The captain, though she wouldn’t really call him anything other than a drunkard sailor, was grinning tooth to no-tooth. His gums were stained various shades of veiny black, but his disheveled and full beard seemed flamboyantly cheerful. He’d be a rich man soon. That was what he wanted, and that is what he’d get.

The woman, demon, invasive like leech who had not quite yet readied herself to suck on, tipped her chin toward the captain, as her eyes flashed at Magus for a brief moment. She was talking to the captain, but with her eyes, the man paying him. Her deeper tone of voice, mirroring the depths of temptation, played on the light movement of her finely colored lips, she kept her words short and simple, just like the man who she was talking to, for she knew not any word she spoke would be satisfactory to the man donning too much fabric on his shoulders, “I’d like you to invite me aboard,” his eyes lit up as she spoke his language, she read the lustful glow in them easily, he was the kind of man who liked to hear women beg and of course, she felt no shame obliging, “Please.”