Cupidity

She was coping quite well, really, for someone who’d been kidnapped.

And it wasn’t like there was room to debate on whether or not she had been kidnapped by a demon. She had.

Sable had prepared for telepathic screaming and weird little coughs of terror coming out of her throat between the spaces where vocal chords should have operated. He had readied for the shivers and the shakes and the questioning of reality. He’d anticipated a great deal of praying. Had honestly expected to find her in here silently wailing to God from the humbled position of her knees…

Certainly the loss of Mona Lisa’s beauty and value had not crossed his mind.

That hurt.

It was like she’d punched him in the groin with an iron fist…

He hadn’t steeled himself for her perpetual, impossible babble either. He’d imagined neither her exploration nor the dance with which she weaved and spiraled throughout the horde house on an otherworldly sultriness of grace.

And he was a bit peeved, actually, that she had the gall not only to tell her captor what he was going to do. But to go ahead and start playing dress-up with treasures so expensive they made The Queen of England look like a homeless bum washed up in one of Myrefall’s ditches…

But eventually, he found what he was looking for.

A gigantic tomb bound in unicorn leather and weighing approximately seven-hundred pounds laden knowledge both demonic and angelic. Liber. The book. Not just a book. The book. A much coveted work which may very well sear the human eyes which lusted for its secrets…

Liber was one of his most prized possessions. It could not be burned nor ripped nor smeared nor broken. Not even exploded. Any spell cast upon it backfired and any tragedy it sustained healed within the binding of its potent leather. Leather sizzling his fingertips with a warning of righteous retaliation…

After a great deal of consideration… Sable decided to let Willow keep what she’d found to adorn herself. It wasn’t like she was going anywhere with it. Really, he could put such jewelry upon a coat hook and worry no less about the state of his possessions. Coat hooks can’t walk away and neither can humans.

Not from a demon like Sable.

And she was prettier than a coat hook. Far more enticing to gaze upon, she embodied the sheen of that treasure and graced it with elaboration of her own.

A practical display.

Far more qualified to show off mankind’s finer creations than any coat hook could hope to be. Likewise, the treasure… made her even more appealing… if that was possible. Eye candy. Hypnotic as a trance. As though she had been born specifically to model the riches of time. Her beauty and grace enhanced minutely within the glow of the ornaments and shine of their wealth.

Sable had to shake himself… And blinked, restoring them to the world of the living and shimmering back into his clothes…

Smirking at her sudden surprise and relief. Her jubilation at having been freed and her exhilaration at having set foot upon the familiarity of earth. Her emotion taking shape in a sharp inhale of recognition. A wide-eyed twirl of reconfirmation, spinning on her bare feet like a ballerina poised for freestyle.

Sable took a moment to preen. To revel and relish the sensation of fabric gliding across his skin and a belt securing snugly round his waist.

Clothes are wonderful things. Humans don’t really know. They don’t get it… and Sable supposed they couldn’t get it. They don’t even understand. How horrific it is to be stripped of your own vessel. How atrocious it is to have no body to call your own, no warmth for your soul to call home. No concealment. No privacy. No protection nor secrets.

Women these days, they complained about nudes and porn and strippers and objectification of the female body.

Let me tell you something ladies, naked is not the lack of clothes. Naked is the lack of a body to conceal the yearnings of your soul. And you have not been nude. You have not been stripped or objectified. Until you have been revoked of your right to physicality.

And such atrocities have been committed upon your soul.

People wonder why demons go about possessing people.

Sometimes… they just wanted to be clothed.

Anyway, Liber had been cleverly hidden between a bookshelf full of trophies and a statue of Obsidian, the Dragon King of Death. Sable actually didn’t like Obsidian, he didn’t like any ruler of death to be honest. They had a tendency to kill things. Of course. And take their souls. And horde those. Which sort of took all the fun out of God’s green earth. That’s what they were fighting for anyway, right? The earth. The life. That kind of great stuff? Ruling death just seemed so…

Fruitless.

Where’s your restroom? Willow cocked her head to the side questioningly. Her large green eyes giving him the heebie-jeebies with the way they swirled and spiraled angelic within their depths. Tattoos aglow and symbols glittering protectively, Sable could hardly look at her for fear of incinerating his own brain. She was so… beautiful… and so… untouchable… it was killing him.

“Down the hall, to your right.” Sable shrugged and sank into his desk chair. He had chosen the house primarily because it was simple. The couple had already packed, and their boxes were stacked neatly in order of importance near the door. It was small, but not too small. Stained and broken as would be any self-respecting ghetto cave, it was lavished not only with blood but with tears.

Wrapped around an admittedly interesting staircase. Interesting because it was only half of a staircase. But it still attempted to spiral. And it yearned and it stretched and it creaked and it groaned as it snaked its way painfully for the upper story in a precarious topple of firewood.

This desk that Sable was leaning the chair against… still boasted its very own ancient desktop. One of those big bulky dinosaur machines. And their internet connection was yet to run out.

Mostly because Sable was syphoning it from the neighbors. Like the electricity and the water. Internet usage was one of those new inventions that Sable had picked up as necessity. And gobbled down with the zeal of a glutton in Hometown Buffet. Humans weren’t all that much, if anything. But they were creative. Imaginations possibly being what made them so endearing.

So spreading Liber out across his lap, Sable waited.

Five… four… three… two… one…

POOFT!

Willow exploded right in front of him here in the center of the demoralizing household. A little tangle of surprise. Confusion muddling her thought process with a poignant sort of curiosity and an urge to have another go. Try another window. Another door. See just how well Sable had tricked out the place to ensure her failure to escape.

What she didn’t realize, was that Sable hadn’t tricked out the house.

Sable was just Sable. His mere existence tied that which he wanted to his vicinity. Like a star. Valuables orbited him. Women flocked to him. Cash fell for him and fame shimmered just out of his reach shyly from a threshold of respect for the trick. The trick of how the devil did not exist.

And amusedly, he watched her trot about the house and try the various different methods by which a would-be victim might find their way to solace. Every window. Every door.

She was beginning to have a grand old time.

Pooft!

The soft whisper of her giggle a haunting melody of soundlessness. Fluttering past her lips like the ruffling of papers in a scuffle. The clatter of the leaves in fall and the rush of their branches in the loss. Her laughter was illuminating the room in childish wonder. Breathing a vivacious sort of excitement escalating on the joy of one’s first roller coaster.

Somersaulting now as she landed. Pooft! A cartwheel. Pooft! A round-off. Tumbling playfully to her back and stretching out before him, It might not be so bad, this kidnapping business.

“You’re a strange one, I’ll grant you that.”

What’s up with the book?

“I am intent on ascertaining a method of keeping you for myself without the nasty side effects.” Sable gestured with his sizzling arm, “Furthermore, I wish to find the means by which your mother barred my nose from having savored and identified your scent.”

You… have a creepy way with words.

“What sort of demon would I be if I didn’t?”

So like, what makes you think I’m not human?

“After having made it past the distraction of your… spirit armor…” Sable sighed and ran a hand through his wondrously soft hair, “I am intrigued by your muscle tone. The way you move. The fact that I have slammed you silly against a brick wall, yet you remain unharmed. And now, here you lie before me after having pickpocketed my horde house. Proceeding to dance time and time again through the spell of a chaotic.”

Maybe I’m just a badass.

That’s what I’m hoping for. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, “Angel-heart, have you noticed symptoms of immortality?”

What? Like living forever is a disease?

“In a manner of speaking, it’s worse than demonism.”

That doesn’t make any sense.

“Neither does your existence, but we shall have plenty of time to explore such impossible happenstance.”

So… I guess this is the part where you say, ‘You’re a wizard, Harry.’

“No. If I wanted a wizard, I would have gone to Portland.”