Threshing Floor

Baited and Hooked

The table in the corner of The Bait and Hook had become the center of the universe and the lantern was its unholy moon.  Thresh and Dania stared at each other across the well polished wood slab, and although each of them appeared outwardly calm,  each was feverishly analyzing the other hoping to divine some insight into their motives and goals. The silence stretched out longer and more intense all while the conversations around them continued on.  Occasional nervous glances from around the common room bounced off the invisible bubble around the two adversaries without gleaning any useful information into the nature of the wordless struggle.
Dania parted her lips as if about to break the stalemate. Thresh leaned forward with an expectant glint in his eye. Dania smiled thinly, sat back and re-arranged the folds of her jet black skirt.  Thresh frowned and the expectation was replaced with a bored grimace.  He pushed his chair back and started to stand.  He had never been a patient person even when mortal and had become even less so since gaining the ability to snatch the souls of others and bend them completely to his will.  The fabric of his perfectly tailored pants had just barely broke contact with the seat when Dania lifted one finger and cleared her throat.  A low, gravelly growl rumbled from somewhere in his chest and he rose to his full six foot plus height, met her eyes, and instantly regretted it.
Normally, the eyes truly were windows to the soul. Normally, Thresh sought out those twin portals like a shark following the scent of blood in open water.  Normally, that was the last thing his prey saw before feeling the bite of the hook that dragged them into the lantern’s depths.  As Thresh brought his emerald green gaze to bear on Dania’s hazel eyes, he prepared to relish the look of shock that normally greeted him if for no other reason than that he could put an end to this irritating woman who dared try to play games with him.  What he found were depths that he had never contemplated before.  In those eyes, beneath the green flecked brown, was an enigma, something that he didn’t understand.  It simultaneously intrigued and annoyed him.  There was a soul in there somewhere , but it had been bonded, blended, merged so completely with another….thing, that it would be nearly impossible to separate the two.  Worse, the combination of her natural being with another alien one made it impossible for him to read her.  So intent was his focus on teasing out the mystery, he didn’t notice the thin tendrils of mist trickling from his lantern, slowly wending their way toward the table’s other occupant.
Dania noticed it.  “Dear sir, I believe you are leaking,” she said dryly.  “I would have thought that a gentleman of refinement such as yourself would show more self control.”
“I am sure I have no idea what you are referring to,” Thresh replied as he quickly composed himself and the errant emanation snapped back. He raised his voice and looked around the tavern, “Did anyone else see anything?”  A unanimous shaking of heads passed through the room, even though it was obvious that all the patrons were studiously avoiding looking at the pair in question.
“See?  However, I am glad that you were ‘kind’ enough to break the silence first,”  he intentionally oozed insincerity.  “What is a fine lady like yourself doing in a place like this?  Ah, but where are my manners?  Introductions are in order.  I am the owner of this establishment, Master Erlok.  I rarely have others purposely seek my company, so please forgive any lapse in my etiquette.”
The infuriating woman had the gall to resume her apparently indifferent scrutiny.  He felt his patience slipping quickly as he stood there with his hand extended and she merely covered her mouth with the back of her hand and yawned.  He could no longer control himself when she sighed disappointedly, stood up, and began to walk away.  The candles flickered and dimmed abruptly as he withdrew the one hand and the other shot out, flinging a wickedly barbed hook attached to a chain wreathed in verdant flame.  It flew across the short space still separating them and buried itself in her back, ignoring the dress and any armor she may have hidden underneath.
Thresh smiled hungrily and prepared to savor victory but when he began to pull the hook back, the impossible happened.  Dania reached around behind her back and slowly wrapped her fingers around the chain and held the hook firmly in place.  The look on her face as she leisurely turned around showed the first hints of emotion since entering the Bait and Hook.  Her eyes were no longer flat and unreadable, they were triumphant.
“Thank you, Master Erlok for finally revealing your true nature.  I came here looking for the fiend Thresh and now I have unmistakable proof that I have found him,”  she crooned, still gripping the hook and stepping closer.  Now face to face, even though there was a noticeable difference in their physical heights, she intoned with the cadence of a binding contract “My name is Dania, and we shall be allies until I have retrieved what I want from a certain Captain Sarah Fortune.”
“Every.. body.. OUT!” Thresh growled, recovering quickly from his shock. Even though the command had been issued at a volume barely above a whisper, the main room of the tavern emptied rapidly in a flurry of scraping chair legs and scurrying boots.
  This was something new.  He felt an undercurrent of excitement beneath the seething rage cascading through his entire being.  Drawing himself up to his full height, he summoned his fire in a blazing, unholy nimbus and returned her stare. 
“Why wasn’t she drawing back in fear?” he thought to himself, the barest hint of confusion beginning to flicker at the back of his mind. “ No, forget drawing back, why wasn’t she cowering in terror?”  Every light in the room, every flame in the candles, even the dancing tongues of fire  in the massive stone fireplace dimmed as their energies joined the aura around the tavern’s master now resembling a spiraling inferno.
“Who do you think you are, woman? Do you think to challenge me, in my own domain? Your spirit will join the spirits of much stronger beings than you.”
Finally moving but never breaking his gaze nor releasing her grip on the hook still protruding from her back, she raised her other hand and slowly traced one finger down his cheek.
“My soul shall not be yours, at least not in the way you are accustomed to, sir.  I have suffered a blight, a sickness that has altered the very makeup of my spirit. It is no longer mortal or fully human.  It is not susceptible to your predations.  It does not respond to your intimidation.” In one fluid movement, she grabbed the lapel of his jacket and sat on the edge of the table behind her, pulling him to her.  Once again eye to eye, she permitted one corner of her lips to twist upwards in a sly smile.
“And I am not challenging you, my dear,” she whispered, “I am binding you to me.  We shall be fully partners.”
With the slightest effort, the hand gripping the hook jerked it free and tossed it to the ground at her side.  In a motion too rapid for the eye to follow, she transferred her hold to the back of Thresh’s head and held it in place while her lips found his.  He immediately tried to break free but found himself locked in an unyielding embrace.  His eyes widened in shock and his arms pushed back on her shoulders in an effort to break free. So complete was his astonishment that he lost control of his physical manifestation.  His body began to cycle through form after form, looking for a way to escape. In rapid succession he became a deep sea monster with writhing tentacles, a flaming skull, the green fire turned blue and took on the appearance of flashes of lighting reaching out to all the metal surfaces.  He became a dark celestial with a gaping black void in place of his mouth and still found himself locked in place.  At one point, he assumed the form of a dark skinned man with a large, neat afro and glasses and this finally had an effect on his captor.
“Interesting, I actually felt something that time.  I thought that was lost to me when I got sick,” ruminated Dania and she abruptly loosened her grasp.
Thresh staggered backward and tripped over a cane that one of the patrons had let fall to the floor in their rush to vacate the room.  He dropped hard on his back looking  at the implacable demon in a neatly tailored dress perched on the polished hardwood of one of his tables, speechless.
“Wait a minute, is it possible?  Can it be that the fearsome Chain Warden, in the entire length of his existence, his many lifetimes, has never been with a woman?”  Dania quickly crossed the space that separated them and dropped down astride the paralyzed man. “I have changed my mind, perhaps we shall not be full partners,” she said wryly, “I find that I rather like it more when I’m on top.”
__________

In a shadowy, grimy alley outside of a nondescript tavern close to the docks of Bilgewater Bay, a blind man lay dying.  He had once had a name but in the last of a series of indignities that was his life, he breathed his last few breaths, penniless and forgotten to all but the rats that hid in the corners waiting for the final twitches of life to leave him before they could dine. Sadly for the rats, this was not to be the night for feasting.
The sooty, opaque windows of the tavern suddenly flared with a blazing, green light like a sickly star that had gone supernova.  The light reflected and danced in the staring eyes of the dead man before rapidly imploding back within the confining walls of the establishment.  The man sat up abruptly and drew a deep breath as he looked around.  His hands roamed over his ragged, dingy clothing as if to reassure him that he was real flesh and blood.  Joy and uncertainty in equal parts played across his face as he realized he could not see but then he lifted a bruised chin to the sky and exalted,  “I’m free!  I’m actually free! I am Will Nonce and I. am. FREE!