Nephilim: Children of Angels

34: Nephilim: Playthings of Demons

Once outside, Lilith hands Sasuke and I each a small rectangular device. I remember these from old movies. They're pagers. I look at her. Where am I going to keep a pager? She hands me something else, without me asking. It's a band.

"You'll need to keep these charged and with you at all times. If you get a page you're to meet here for further instruction. You have at most thirty minutes to comply, unless otherwise instructed, so don't go more than thirty minutes from this point." She says.

I put the strap around my arm, but Lilith stops me. She takes the strap from me and kneels on one knee. "Lift." She instructs, gesturing to my leg. I do as she says, and she slides the strap up to my thigh, so it is well hidden under the near floor length dress.

"Aesthetic is important." She states simply, returning to a standing position.

I nod, my skin still tingling where her fingers touched. I need to pull myself together. Sasuke just glares at her. She glares back for a moment but must decide it's not worth a fight.

"Wait in your rooms. I'll send someone to give you a tour, shortly." She orders, glancing at her watch again. She seems stressed.

Sasuke follows me to my room, disregarding Lilith's command.

"What the fuck is with that guy?" Sasuke demands, closing the door to my room. "He is repulsive. These outfits are ridiculous and Lilith. Either something crawled up her ass or she has a stick up there." He fumes.

"It's disappointing." I agree, sitting on the edge of my large bed. "But the rooms nice." Forced to be the optimistic one, now that Sasuke is spiraling. "Maybe we'll, like, never get paged. Then we won't have to deal with either of them and just hang out. Maybe there's a movie theater within thirty minutes of here or a mall or maybe a Ceilingmart. Ooo remember, Ceilingmart." I gush, thinking of all the normal life things we might get to do.

"Maybe." He agrees, pouting instead of fuming now. He plops on the bed beside me. "You shouldn't shop at Ceilingmart, though. They're evil." We meet eyes and bust out laughing.

"Maybe Master Asmodeus." I say all dramatically. "Owns Ceilingmart." I joke.

"That would make sense." He chuckles. "We have to get out of here." Sasuke insists, a serious thoughtful expression replacing the moment of humor.

"Where would we go? They would find us and then what?" I ask.

"I don't know. I just don't want to spend the rest of my life like this." He says sadly.

"Then we'll go." I agree, feeling emboldened by the look on his face. "We get paid right? We'll save up some money then I'll teleport us out of here. We'll live our life on the move. We'll go to Thailand, Paris, Fiji, all the best places." I conspire, grinning at how ludicrously wonderful my plan sounds.

He smiles up at me. "Why not?" He asks. "I wonder how much we'll get paid, though? How much will we need? How long will we have to be here to save enough to get what we need?" He ponders, figuring out the logistics. Why not? I don't know but I'm sure there's a reason. I guess that's the pessimist in me.

There's a knock at the door, and I go to answer it. It's a tall woman with bright red hair. She's taller than my friend Michelle. I don't think I have ever seen a woman this tall. She must be at least six feet tall.

"Hello. I'm Julia." She greets softly, sticking out her hand.

"Hi. Sara." I respond, shaking her hand.

"Hi. I'm Sasuke." Sasuke greets, coming up behind me. I move aside so they can shake.

"Lilith sent me to give you both a tour." She says meekly with a small smile. She's wearing a maid uniform, luckily not a skimpy costume one. It's long sleeved and comes down to about mid-calf on Julia. The sweetheart neckline reveals a portion of cleavage, but her neck is covered with a sort of collar of her own fringed in lace. Her outfit is topped off with a frilly white apron and hair band. A very modest outfit but it's made less so by Julia's generous curves, and I think the general underlying sexual connotations that go along with a maid uniform.