Subtlest Game: Book One - March of the Pawns

Chapter 11

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Ceris felt her hackles rise, her legs tensing and her eyes flaring with purple light.
"Lilith." she growled.
Arabella's dark side smiled softly.
"Ceris. I must say, you're more alluring than ever through my own eyes."
"Who are you?" demanded Purple Reaper. "Why do you look like the captain?"
Lilith gave a mocking bow. "Lilith. Arabella as she should have been, and will be if you don't do something."
"What does that mean?" demanded Ceris. Her tail whipped around in agitation, shattering a no-doubt priceless vase. "Why are you here? How are you here?"
Lilith smirked, leaning back against the wall.
"How am I here...interesting question."

Three hours earlier

Lilith yawned, stirring. She stretched under the woven blanket, slowly cracking her eyes open, allowing the white of her slitted pupils to illuminated the darkened room. It was, as far as Arabella's memories informed, a fairly standard inn lodging; a small wooden room, with a sink, a bed and a small cupboard. A glassless hole in the wall gave a view over the dirty, ramshackle landscape of Nordos city's underground, illuminated only by the lights the resident Kitsune lit for themselves.

Lilith sat up, pushing the covers off her naked body. Her pupils widened slightly, allowing her to see better in the gloom. She could have lit a candle, but Siren eyes were better than a cat's in the dark.

With a creak of floorboards, she slid off the bed and crossed to the door. She was about to open it, but then remembered Chakra had insisted she wore clothes.
"Civilisation," she muttered mockingly under her breath. Throwing open the cupboard, she donned a bra, then pulled the dark blue kimono Karma had given her around herself. It covered more skin than she would have preferred, but she supposed attracting attention would be wasting time currently. There'd be time to play with the foxes later.

The stairs creaked as Lilith descended to the lower floor. Chakra glanced up at her from behind the bar and nodded a greeting, his tails a tired grey of an early morning haze. Karma had introduced him as her twin brother, co-owner and bartender.
"You're up, I see."
Lilith raised an eyebrow and turned. Karma was dressed in a silvery kimono, a dagger sheathed and hung at a silk belt on her waist. Her tails were the hard iron grey of alertness.
"Correct." responded Lilith, sitting down at a table. "I considered disembowelling you in your sleep, but decided I needed my beauty rest."
"Haha." replied Karma. She snapped her fingers at Chakra. "Coffee." Her brother turned to a rather decrepit looking machine behind the bar and placed a cup under it.
"I wasn't joking, little one." murmured Lilith, watching as Karma snatched a now steaming cup and downed half of it in a gulp.
"And yet here I am." the kitsune replied.
"Lucky you." Lilith said, tilting her head slightly.  She watched with interest as the siblings worked, the sarcastic woman and her silent brother. She didn't find either of them attractive – not that they weren't both pretty in the way of the kitsune, but the fox spirits' beauty was too fragile, too ethereal for a being of the flesh such as Lilith – but their was something fascinating about their motions, the easy way they moved around each other as they cleaned up the bar and the unsteady wooden tables. A casual familiarity in their movements that made Lilith feel a brief pang of loneliness.

***

"Right," Karma laid out a map of the underground on the table, weighing it down with a couple of empty flagons. They were eating breakfast, plates piled with rice and a tough, pinkish meat that tasted good but was unidentifiable even to Lilith's Siren enhanced palate.
"There's a couple of exits from the underground. You'll be wanting to get into the city, right?" Lilith nodded her assent. "In which case, you'll be wanting to go through here." she indicated the northern edge. "There's a small slope, and you'll find a tunnel at the top."
"I don't suppose you'll be accompanying me?" asked Lilith. Karma frowned at her.
"Obviously not. I'm not going for a walk with a murderer."
Lilith forced down a flare of something that took her a moment to recognise as disappointment.
"The tunnel should spit you out near the city wall." the kitsune continued. "You should be able to make your own way from there.
Lilith nodded coolly, running her tongue over her fangs, smiling inwardly at the thought of Ceris's reaction.
"Watch out, little Ceris. Mistress is coming home."