L'appel du Vide

Chapter 2

-*-

Sion and I were the only ones sat at the bar.

Well, whatever was left of Sion anyway.

The dustpan containing his ashes was set on the countertop next to me, while the rest of us were just drinking our weight in liquor. Our bartender was lazily circling his cloth over the already sparkling clean bar and throwing a glance at me every once in a while.

Amicus was good at his job.

When we had all come and flooded the bar with our shitty mood, he had just stared at the dustpan in my hands and begun to hand out unopened bottles of whatever liquor he knew we favoured frequently. So now that everybody was occupied, he only gave out a glass every once in a while and kept full bottles coming.

I did not mean to space out as hard as I did, but my eyes were just glued to the ever-changing and constantly moving tattoos on Amicus' arms. The scenes of ancient roman wars and extinct animals chasing each other through the forest were calming my mind.

Licking my lips, I took another swig from the brown liquor in front of me.

Turning to the dustpan next to me, I raised my glass.

"To you Sion," I mumbled.

The liquor burned down my throat when I finished it all in one gulp.

"Take it easy, Levi," Amicus grinned. "You're not exactly known for being able to hold your liquor well."

"Ah, exposition," I sighed. "Trust me, I know. Soma reminds me every time."

Amicus' gaze hardened and he swallowed, holding my eyes. There was a flicker of something in his eyes that I could not place. It vanished as fast as it came.

I stared him down until his gaze swept over Sion again.

"I hope he didn't suffer much," Amicus said, followed by something in Latin that sounded like a long-forgotten prayer.

"He did," I said in a subdued voice. "But he's in a better place now."

"He was a low-level incubus," Amicus' voice dropped to a low whisper. "Demon's like him do not get reincarnated. They just... fall out of existence."

"Anywhere is better than here," I said and straightened my back. "Even if it means facing total oblivion."

Amicus laughed at my bitterness.

"What have you seen in your poor life that made you this cynical, kid?"

"I may have not fought in sacred wars or the Colosseum," I said. "But I know what suffering feels like, Centurion Amicus."

The air around us fell silent again and we both turned our heads to look at Sion. Quiet chatter floated around us, mostly old stories of Sion and his, well, adventures. There was not much an incubus, born as a prostitute, could do in their life - unless we count his experience in bed.

Pouring myself more liquor, I finished my second bottle.

"Were you close?" Amicus said and picked up another rum bottle for me.

I nodded in thanks and mulled over his question.

Sure, a bartender did not know much of what went on behind the scenes and outside of the public club and stage, but I was very sure that Amicus was already working for us when we found Sion on our doorstep. I practically raised that idiot.

"He was like a brother to me," I humoured him.

"How cliché," Amicus chuckled.

I shrugged my shoulders.

Before I could ask why this was of any importance to him, the lights of the bar started flickering.

I immediately set down my rum bottle and looked around. Everybody had ceased whatever they had been occupied with. I gave Amicus a questioning look. The tattoos on his arms were also displaying his confusion. Large black letters and a lot of question marks started snaking over his forearms, which he braced against the counter trying to identify the source of the energy like all of us were.

Like any good establishment in Hell, ours was protected by a thick energy shield. Just a precaution, as Rose called it. Mainly to keep the employees safe, as we are the ones bringing in the money. The only thing that would make the shield ripple like this was if the external force pressuring it was of a powerful origin.

I furrowed my eyebrows.

Or if someone was trying to teleport inside.

My eyes widened when I saw sparks flying. The energy forcing itself inside had caused a disruption in our electricity and bathed the whole club in darkness. A rough hand curled around my bicep and hurled me across the counter of the bar.

"Amicus?" I hissed and held onto where he had gripped my arm. A dull pain throbbed through my body.

"Shut up, kid," he whispered back. "You don't want to be seen right now."

All sound around us just disappeared. I could feel the energy buzzing in the air and the potency of it almost made me want to be sick. Shivers raked up my spine and I curled into one of the compartments under the bar, trying to listen for any sound from the intruder.

Suddenly, the floodlights above the stage turned on to their brightest setting. I could now make out Amicus who was standing protectively in front of me and the way pure black ink was crawling up his arms.

Whoever was about to arrive, was not on Amicus' good side.

A creaking sound started above me and I noticed that all the lights started moving to point their shine toward the stage. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw our security staff stiffen and turning very pale.

What the fuck was happening.

Amicus gripped onto the counter tighter and his knuckles turned white. His eyes stayed glued to the stage in front of him but he grit out a quiet, "stay down and don't make any noise" to me.

The air all around seemed to suffocate me and only when I heard a dull thud and the deep resonance of shoes hitting the ground of our stage, I knew that our guest had arrived.

"Good evening my Lovelies," a deep voice cooed.

This male sure had a thing for dramatic entrances. I rolled my eyes at him.

There was a collective gasp that rang through the room once everybody had teken a look at the man on stage. It turned so quiet then, you could have heard a pin drop.

"I heard what happened to unlucky Sion," his words were supposed to convey his grief but his tone suggested he had a massive grin on his face.

"May he find his final rest in pieces."

-*-