The Edifice

13. The Gang's All Here

TRIGGER WARNING: scenes of sexual harassment and physical assault

Otis leads me back out to the limo by my hand.

Once again, his touch is like that of a dozen hands entwined around my own. Thin, translucent fingers trace icy trails of goosebumps down my wrists and cause my stomach to rise to the back of my throat.

The fluidity of his body is one thing to look at, quite another to touch. It feels like I've sunk my hand into a bucket of spiders.

Truthfully, his skin-crawling grip is still the only thing keeping me grounded in reality. Not to mention stopping me from swallowing my waning courage and fleeing back into the city night.

The door pops open at our approach, rising upwards like a butterfly wing and releases a thick layer of smoke that pools around our feet. With a final tug of my hand, Otis pulls me inside. Not for the first time tonight, I step through to a different world.

The pulsing LED strips that line the ceiling of the car illuminate the flawless white interior, swirling in time with the heavy club music. Some unseen fog machine, buried beneath the expansive leather seating, continues to expel large puffs of mist. It completely covers the floor of the car in a thick blanket, helped along by the sickly, artificial smokes of the occupants.

A dozen eyes swivel towards me as we climb through the doorway, none of them remotely human. All chatter fades to a halt. I'm half surprised the music didn't stutter into silence too as we entered, the atmosphere is as comically stiff and awkward as a movie scene.

The girl closest to me breaks the silence in a pitched, preppy voice.

"Is that a fucking human?"

If Otis's appearance was born of sleep paralysis, this girl belongs in a fever dream. Her skin's the colour of a fading sunset, cheeks freckled with glittering stars that flash under the roving light. Equally pink curls frame a heart-shaped face like taffy-colored clouds. A pair of straight black horns peek through beneath the tight locks.

She dissects me with cherry red eyes, making me feel like even more of a mess beside her lingerie-style clubbing dress. Before I can even begin to translate her attitude, the limo's driver slams on the accelerator, sending us careening from the carpark as wildly as the car had entered.

I'm jolted forward by the sudden drop of the curb, pinwheeling forward into Otis's outstretched arms. Even as I cling to him for balance, however, the insubstantial man fades away beneath my very fingers. He reappears instantly on the seat across from me, lounging back like he'd been lazing there the entire time.

The driver makes yet another violent swerve, forcing me to grab the seat opposite him, next to the fairy-floss girl. Coupled with the overpowering music and swirling lights, I doubt the contents my stomach will last the trip at this rate.

"Poor little kitten was all alone out there," Otis purrs, offering me a pout for my trouble. "I couldn't not jump to the rescue."

"What the fuck, Otysses?" She laughs, and isn't alone in doing so. The two guys either side of her join in on her mirth, their smirking eyes on me. Another pair of girls huddle at the far end of the limo, thankfully disinterested in the joke I've somehow become the butt of. "Are you tanked already?"

Otysses tuts playfully, sizing me up with his eyes. "Now, now. Please be nice to my friend, Nim. She's had a very stressful night."

"Does your friend have a name?" the young man to Nim's right asks me, accent equally rich and honeyed.

Like the others, he seems to be in his late teens to early twenties, maybe a year or so younger than me. Unlike the others however, he's jarringly monochrome in appearance. Pale snake scales line milky, lidless eyes. They trail along in patches down through his hairline, beneath his jaw and pattern the smoky grey skin of his throat. Something hungry lurks beneath his pearly, blinded pupils.