Teeth

Decorate; pt 1

My stomach did a quiet little flip flop as she said this. It was a strange feeling, like being summoned to the principle's office, but the principle can debone you like a chicken.

It was sort of like stepping outside and being shot at by Bill. It was another nail in the coffin this had build for what I thought was a normal life.

"Great. Um. Where upstairs? And what exactly is the protocol here? Do I grovel or just knock?"

Caroline's instantly narrowed eyes told me I had sharply misstepped, which made the flutter of anxiety in my stomach worse as I pried myself out of the chair.

"Mock her and see what you get." She warned, voice tight and harsh.

"I w..." I started to defend myself, but stopped. "Sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I wasn't thinking."

I hadn't been thinking. I didn't know how old she was, but if she was old enough to have been a vampire and have Caroline have been 'doing this since before I was born'... I hadn't thought about it, but when I did. Well, it didn't take a lot to remember how ugly things had been and not very long ago. The stuff she had put up with, the history she'd been through... the kind of things we liked to forget had belonged to another age, and not another generation. Someone who'd lived through segregation wasn't too likely to take that as funny.

"I'm sorry." I repeated. "I seriously wasn't thinking about that."

She continues to examines me grudgingly for a moment, weighing the sincerity of my apology, then points sharply.

"Straight down the hall, up the stairs, third door on the left. Knock first."

"Great. Thanks."

-

Even with the instructions, I'm nervous of getting lost in Elsie's sprawling house. If this were one of my books, there might be some kind of supernatural pull involved, like an invisible string, but this is not one of my books. There is no string.

It's just decent directions that lead me to the upstairs bedroom where I find Lily. She's perched on a stool, doing her make up in front of a mirror like something out of a work of classic literature, only the ladies in Wuthering Heights would never have dreamed of wearing what she is. She catches my reflection in the mirror and flashes a close lipped smile, adjusting the glittering diamond around her neck and the dark red silk shirt. Between the deep color of her skin, and the pomegranate dark red of the shirt, the large diamond looks particularly white and glitters like a weapon.

"Good evening. I hear it was quite an exciting day."

"That's... politely understated."

"I've had people trying to end my life for ages, tends to loan it a faint air of tedium, especially when they aren't being very creative, though I can understand where the novelty hasn't worn off for you yet. Part of why we're looking to find you a new patron."

"Patron?" I know what the word normally means, but under the circumstances, I'm not quite so sure.

"Patron. I'm Caroline's patron, currently yours..."

I'm not sure how I feel about the faint emphasis on the word 'currently'. Or wondering how exactly one does this. Elsie said it was possible, but somehow I thought of this as something less immediate. That I might have more time to try and get my feet under me. A thought that makes me half conciously shift my weight away from my injured heel.

"...That sounds... very temporary."  I've already been uprooted from my entire existence. "And a bit like putting a trick pony out for show." Somehow I thought this would be either more my choice or at least after I got my feet on the ground.

"Not so much a pony." She picked up a bottle of body spray that swirls and glitters in the light. I've seen the type, it applies glitter to the skin along with a little bit of scent, and the irony isn't lost on me. "More like a rescue kitten. One who needs a proper caretaker under which to grow, and decide if you look to be a house cat..." She pauses and delicately sprays herself with the glittering bottle, applying bright flecks to her dark skin with that satisfied smile. "Or a tiger."

"And would you be an example of a tiger?"

I'm not completely an idiot, even if circumstances have left me feeling like one lately. The question makes her grin, which makes me think of my dream in the chair, and the small hairs on my arms and neck stand at attention.

"I've always liked Lioness, but that's more personal preference, but yes."

She opens another container in front of her and daubs her dark red lipstick with something else that creates a sheen of glitter, and between this and the body spray I just...

"OK is the glitter a joke? Because..." I really don't want to condescendingly assume anything after my foot in mouth with Caroline, but Lily laughs, and I let out a sigh of relief.

"Oh it's a joke. I think I wear it better though." She doesn't ask if I agree, but it's pretty clear she has no need or interest in my validation of her confidence. I'd be a little surprised if she did I guess. It would seem out of character with the whirlwind of power I saw.

"Good to know."

The death goddess has a sense of humor and reads popular fiction, or keeps apace of it.

It's an awkward response to an awkward conversation, and I chew my lip a little while I wait, anxiously. I wanted to see her because I wanted answers, but now that I'm here, I'm at a loss.

I find myself groping for questions when not long ago I swore I could write pages of them. Probably still could, just... not under pressure, waiting for this incredibly dangerous woman to dismiss me out of hand.

"So how exactly does this work?"

I'm unable to entirely keep the tone of growing resentment out of my voice. I'm grateful not to be dead, but considerably less so to be not only in deeper trouble than I was that night, but to be someone's hand of project. I had my life, or thought I did,... more or less under control. The part of me that's even more outraged and bitter to find out I was being spoon fed lies about my best friends life doesn't help, and takes the easy route into being angry now instead. "Could you at least consider telling me how my family ties into all this before... whatever happens and I get handed off to someone else. How did you even know my father, for example? I think that's who you were talking about... What's the story with my mother's family? I've never heard any of this."

So I wasn't doing enormously well remembering how I had meant for things to go, but resentment built up just enough for a stream of something less question and more of a set of demands to boil out.

It's actually more frustrating when it doesn't seem to phase Lily even slightly. She turns on her stool to face me, crosses her legs and blinks slowly. There's actually metallic gold eyeliner on the lids, just a touch. For as many things that sparkle are on her, she just looks more dangerous rather than silly.

"It works when I put the word out, which I did. We're uncommon, but we're not generally anachronistic idiots." She lifts a smart phone out from among the boxes and bottles on the vanity and waggles it, blandly, maybe waiting for me to be floored that she uses something more advanced than a rotary phone or quill pen.

"Then we go to the club. We meet people. People like me. We see if you click. If you do, fantastic, they take over, and we go our separate ways and are much harder for your family to get at. If not, well, we try again. I'm not throwing you on the curb in a cardboard box with a 'free' sign, kitten."

"I know your father because we met when he was alive. He was a good man. He didn't know what I was, I'm not sure he knew about your mother's family. But I know he loved her, in spite of everything she was."

Her eyelids droop slightly as she watches my reaction, perhaps sizing up the prickle that crawls over my skin.

"He honestly thought he could save her from herself I think. Her father was a similar creature. It's a difficult cycle to break out of, isn't it?"

It's a heavy question, and the weight of those eyes, with everything they've seen behind them, makes it even heavier. It's enough to make you wonder if she can read my mind, or deeper, my soul, and pass judgement.