Alcohol & Economics - Something Dangerous - Part 5

Deceit was a lady of few words and a vast amount of quirks. Saint Michael, however, held a very special place on her list of people to avoid at all costs, and a call from him was the last thing she needed that day. She was wrapped up in pointless official business, while trying to juggle a report or two when he called, and hadn’t bothered to check the caller ID to see if it had actually been the call from Mai that she had been expecting. But no, she ended up on the phone with her least favorite of the archangels, though the call itself was mercifully short. It managed to annoy her to no end, as most things involving angels did. Merci was to be escorting two angels of questionable moral caliber to join Saint Gabriel’s guard, and she didn’t get a choice in the matter. Not that she’d gotten a choice in the matter of a saint stalking her little sister with all intentions to take her heart and soul for his own. Michael had even assured her they would fit right into the company she already kept. She’d been the better adult and hung up on him before she started using words he’d never be able to say. The fact that heavenly beings couldn’t curse almost made the whole thing better, but only almost.

“Etna,” Her voice was gravel over the intercom. “We’re expecting two new angels accompanying Merc home. Make sure they get rooms near Gabrielle’s.”

“Saint Gabriel is going to throw another fit if you keep calling him that, ‘Ciet, but consider it done. I’ll bring up tea in a few moments.” The intercom clicked off, and the library fell back into its normal state of near silence, broken only by the flipping of pages and the occasional hiss of a pocket-sized basilisk slinking under the floorboards. That story, however, was one for another time.

“Miss Deceit, we have received a new shipment of books. Would you mind giving them a look for me so that I may catalog them?” Athena, one of the resident gargoyles, politely inquired. Her voice was almost silken in comparison to her appearance.

Deceit nodded, gesturing to her desk where a sizable amount of times were stacked in a way that resembled St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow. Athena only shook her head, suffocating a smile. Her mistress, it seemed, was still upset about missing her trip to the human side of the colorful Russian capital. “Could you shelve these for me?”

“Of course,” Athena gave a slight bow of respect as Deceit stood, though the vast difference between their heights was still glaringly obvious anyway. She nodded in response and disappeared behind rows of shelves only moments before the door opened.

“Ah, Athena, could you be a dear and point me in the direction of my niece? I brought tea.” Etna asked upon entry, a tray laden with small sandwiches and tea carefully balanced in her firm grasp.

“She should be in the 900’s; there are some new books that she went to look through.” Etna nodded to the gargoyle in thanks before disappearing down a row of shelves.

Deceit’s library, which had belonged to her mother, was infamously confusing. Etna had gotten lost and turned around countless times in the seven years she’d been working as Deceit’s (and, by proxy, Merci’s) cleaning lady. Today was no exception, as she passed what looked to be the exact same display case for the third time. She always had a horrible sense of direction, even as a small child her brother had made it a point of making fun of the Native vampire with no sense of direction. Her temper had taken a little longer to develop, but its ferocity was unmatched by anyone except perhaps Wisdom’s wife, Virtue.

“Deceit,” She growled only loud enough to be heard in a two foot radius of where she stood. “I swear to Sutekh that if you’re making my life difficult intentionally, I’ll poison your tea.”

‘Try going left,’ her mind supplied her. Etna compiled to the request, despite her better judgment of thoughts with unknown origins. Another right followed, and she could see blue hair that could only belong to her niece, partly hidden behind a stack of crates that had seen better days. Sure enough, Deceit was sorting through one of the wooden boxes filled to the brim with old volumes that looked like they’d fall apart at the slightest touch.

“There you are!” Etna’s voice nearly cracked with excitement, making Deceit visibly cringe.

“What?” Deceit asked curtly, not looking up from the task at hand. She tossed a particularly beat up tome to the side, only for the basilisk to slither in and abduct it before disappearing beneath a shelf with it, whining about how overworked and underpaid he was.

“Feodore is stealing your books again,” Etna started with the obvious. “Merci’s home with the angel pair, who can’t go more than three feet into either of the libraries until you white list them … oh, and I brought tea,” She listed as she focused on balancing the tray on a dangerously stacked pile of books. Once that was accomplished, she poured the rather bitter-looking liquid into a mug and passed it off to Deceit, being sure to bypass sweetener.

“Thank you.” Deceit took a sip between handfuls of books. Etna just shook her head.

“How do you manage that?” She wondered aloud, retrieving a pair of lead gloves and holding them out for her niece before she could even ask. Etna had been around the ‘her’ girls for long enough to question how they were related. There were so many differences, it was insane. Some were small, like how Deceit liked her tea bitter and Merci enjoyed liquid sugar with just enough tea to give it flavor. Others were glaringly present, such as their polarized appearance.

“How is it you can sense such a weak curse from a meter and a half away?” She countered, switching her usual black gloves for the leaded ones. The cursed tome in question had no definitive markings, except for November 1962 burned into the faded leather. She placed it into a protective case and set it aside.

“Why do you even keep those things?” Etna wondered, adding yet another question never to be answered to the air between them. It wasn’t unusual, of course. Deceit wasn’t exactly known for being the most vocal child on earth. It took Etna a few moments to concede that her niece was no longer a child, and hadn’t been for some time. “Anyways, you have angels waiting to be white-listed and if they wait too much longer, I think the blond one is going to jump your sister.”

“You sound almost excited at the prospect of an angel taking my sister on a couch in my library with witnesses.” Deceit stood and brushed dust from her jeans, taking a moment to switch her gloves back.

“I am a chaos dæmon, after all.” Deceit only rolled her eyes at Etna’s seemingly innocent act.

“Who am I dealing with?”

“Crypt is the one with black hair, Titus is the blond. They’re twin angels-“

“Don’t we have enough of them kicking around?” In her defense, she had two angels and an archangel making regular appearances on her property, usually at the worst possible times. She found Darius, Saint Gabriel’s right hand for just about anything that Lou, his betrothed, didn’t handle, and was particularly annoying.

“Apparently not; this one has two archangels’ signatures. They’re to join Gabriel’s guard.” She paused for a moment, partly deciding to withhold the other signature and partly to think of an afterthought to keep her niece from noticing. “They’re rather pretty to look at, though. At least the dark haired one is. That’s a plus, right?”

“I hope they get eaten by a tree.” Deceit gave Etna a split second sour look before dropping all expression and going to lean against her desk. Etna bit back a smile and left the two winged beings to deal with one of the most difficult women they would ever have the pleasure of meeting.

On the other side of the door, Titus was becoming increasingly uncomfortable beneath Deceit’s scrutinizing gaze, shifting restlessly. Crypt, being the more headstrong of the two, all but engaged in a staring contest with the blue haired girl he may or may not have been assigned to protect. But he’d deny everything until the day he died, and probably after that, too.

Merci, having followed the two new guys into Deceit’s library, purely to make sure they didn’t cause trouble for her already hard pressed older sister, was sprawled out on one of the upholstered couches with a dated copy of Biochemistry Weekly claiming her attention. The redhead had read that particular copy seven times before, but it was one of the better excuses she had come up with to see the possible and probable fireworks unfold. Judging by the lack of blood reaching her fingertips, Tyrant, an experiment in literal personification of plants that she made a habit of wearing as a bracelet, was getting much more enjoyment out of the article detailing the proper dissection of the synthetic organs used in most (illegal) modern Hybrid experiments. Everything was silent for a few moments before Merci decided to switch position, her shoulder was at an odd angle, and promptly growled as she accidentally pulled her hair in the process. It was stupid, really. She couldn’t even remember why she’d grown her hair out to begin with and it only managed to cause difficulties. Deceit reached behind her and threw a clip at her younger sister- who caught it rather gracefully, Titus noted.

“Names.”

“Crypt, if that was a question.” She could deal with that one, Deceit decided. The blond, on the other hand, he was way too virtuous as far as she could tell. Way too virtuous for comfort, and that would definitely cause problems for her later. “And that’s my twin, Titus.” Crypt added after Titus was silent for several minutes. If he was staring at Merci again, Crypt was going to lock him up in a closet and drop the key down an abandoned well.

“Wonderful,” Her tone begged to differ, and Merci struggled not to burst out in giggles over the look of horror making its way across Titus’ features. “I assume you have papers.” Deceit was known for her non-questions, among other things. Almost anyone would agree or disagree with her statements without inquiry. Such were the people she was forced to deal with on a semi-regular basis.

Sure enough, Titus produced an envelope with the yellow sun disk emblem used by the archangels. Deceit pulled a knife out of who knows where and spent the following handful of minutes reading over the paperwork before sighing.

“Damn it all, why can’t Mike leave me a loophole once in awhile?” Deceit growled, signing the bottom of the page and shoving it back into the envelope with more force than necessary. She sealed it with a customary club pushed into molten red wax. Once sealed, the envelope promptly vanished. Deceit was busy trying to figure out exactly how Michael would pay for this one when her side pocket began vibrating. She ignored it, and waited for the call to go to voicemail.

“Did he send you another official order?” Merci asked curiously, perching her feet on the top of the couch. Athena gave Merci a withered look from where she was shelving books, willing her to get her feet off the furniture, but was promptly ignored by the teenage vampire.

“Isn’t it always, coming from him?” Deceit sighed, opening a drawer overflowing with various electronics. “Do you two have cell phones?”

“What’s a cell phone?”

“No.”

“Even better, you do now.” Deceit pushed half a dozen different buttons before throwing the boring flip phone in her hand at Crypt’s face. He had better reflexes than she realized, and caught the airborne technology with ease. She repeated the process with Titus’ phone, and was rewarded when the angel was too busy staring at her sister to do anything but catch the phone with his face. “Show the idiot how to use it, Crypt.”

Crypt would never admit it, not even in a thousand years, but this Deceit girl was beginning to grow on him. Perhaps this assignment wasn’t going to be as bad as he initially thought.

“You sound like you’re going somewhere.” Merci had picked up some of her mannerisms over the years, non-questions just happened to be one of them. She had yet to receive a response to any of them to date, however. This time, it was because Deceit was busy shuffling papers and muttering a spell. No, Merci corrected herself, two spells. If she had to guess, it was the spells that would allow them access to the libraries, and to be summoned.

“Have you two ever been summoned?” Deceit asked the boys, who had a chill of apprehension go down their spines.

“N-no…” was the collective answer.

“Merci?” As if on cue, Merci jumped up with more enthusiasm than either of the angels had seen on her since they met. She was absolutely glowing with pent up energy, at least it seemed that way to Titus. Crypt only scoffed.

“Let me walk you through the whole summoning thing,” She grinned. Titus would tell you that her smile was stunning, absolutely flawless. Crypt would be too busy being creeped out to say anything. “If you will, please step over here…” Without giving them a chance, Merci grabbed their wrists and pulled. To their surprise, the little redhead held a deceptively large amount of force for her tiny frame. The angels landed in an unforgivable heap, but Merci didn’t seem to care.

“Now, if you’ll please turn your attention to the closed door here.” She gestured to a door between two upholstered armchairs. Crypt couldn’t seem to remember seeing it when they’d first come into the library. “For future reference, this door connects this library to the lower one. You two have been white listed, so any active general restriction spells will not affect you. However, specialized ones will still bust your knee caps into slivers.

“Moving on, this is also the door for summoning. My sister will give you an example,” Merci’s smile was blinding.

“Darius,” Deceit spoke the name clearly, sounding rather bored if her look was anything to go by. A moment later there was a sickening thump on the other side of the door. Merci opened it to reveal a very ragged Darius, with his wings bent at what seemed to be awkward angles.

“And that’s summoning,” Merci’s tone was still rather cheerful, which only made the angel twins more concerned. “If you ever forget your cell phone- or piss my sister off- your face will be making the newest impression on my door.” She flashed them a hundred watt smile as Darius managed to get to his feet. He pulled a bag of gummy bears from somewhere in his robes and threw them at Merci before she had a chance to sink her teeth into his arm or worse.

“Miss Deceit, was that really necessary? I just got back from the chiropractor and it’s my day off…” Darius whined, rolling his shoulder and straightening his feathers.

“Yes, it was completely needed,” Deceit deadpanned with a glare. “Crypt and Titus have been ordered to join Gabriel’s circus, get them out of my library.”

“Of course,” He motioned for the boys to follow him, a request they were only too happy to fill.

“I think we scared them,” Merci sighed once they were gone, sinking into one of the couches with her bag of gummy bears. Every so often she’d feed a yellow one to Tyrant. If he wasn’t supposed to have them then why did he like them so much?

“If they couldn’t handle that, they’re going to die of shock when the front lawn gets a chance to eat them.” Moments later, three consecutive screams slammed into the windows, shaking them ever so slightly.

“Well, that was fast.”

“Handle that, will you? I’ve got books to sort. Get the mail while you’re at it.” She disappeared behind a bookshelf as Merci stood up and sighed.

“Well, if anything, I have two new victims.” She muttered to no one in particular, leaving her sister’s library. Taking the stairs two at a time, she all but flew down the spiral staircase and hopped over the side of a white couch, startling the night elf seated there watching television. Spewing a quick apology to Polly, she navigated the maze of corridors and brightly painted halls- it was a common theme- she busted out of the front door dramatically, which closed with a nearly inaudible click behind her.

‘Good day, Miss Merci.’ Freddy, one of her more successful biochemistry experiments, greeted as she passed. The worrisome nurse in her had a nagging suspicion that her creation was lacking vitamin D with the amount of sun bathing Freddy had been doing recently. He was, in essence, a four foot tall Venus flytrap with teeth and a knack for picking locks. It had taken her awhile to produce a viable subject, she couldn’t say just how many failed attempts she’d had before creating his predecessor, whom she had lovingly nicknamed Jimmy. Jimmy’s entire purpose was to finally pick the lock to Deceit’s safe, but after his fifteenth failure something went awry within the plant’s already unstable mind. Merci spent a week scraping his remains from the fireplace, and then it was straight to work on Jimmy II, who laid the foundation for Freddy’s creation. Unfortunately, he developed a fertilizer dependency, which her sister was quick to exploit. It was sad, really, but at least this one hadn’t committed suicide yet.

“Hi there, Dionaea musciouia mutation, how are you?” She asked conversationally, taking the day’s mail from the mailbox and thumbing through it absently. Love letter for ‘Ciet, love letter for her, official business letter, love letter, letter from school, postcard, love letter, electric bill, gas bill, magical barrier bill, love letter, and a new copy of Biochemistry Weekly. Merci squealed and quickly debated the pros and cons of canceling her date with Xavier later just to spend her night holed up in the lab… She shook her head. Deceit sent her down here to free three idiot angels and probably the mailman. Merci couldn’t get distracted by a new issue of her favorite magazine… of her favorite hobby…

‘They’re going to run out of oxygen if you leave them in there too much longer.’ Freddy wrote on his whiteboard, playing both the reminder and voice of reason cards at once.

“I know, but we could do with a few less angels around here…” She trailed off. The angels may have deserved it, but if the mailman died, who would bring her the new issue of Biochemistry Weekly?

‘Don’t you have plans to ascend in the future?’

“Maybe…” Merci sighed; she had been beaten by a mutation, a science experiment, her creation. It wasn’t the first time, either.

‘#Winning.’ Freddy seemed smug, or whatever the plant equivalent of smug was. She glared at him and threw the mail at him- minus her precious magazine.

“Alright, Capriola dactylon abomination- spit the angels up or I’ll light you on fire.”

Nothing happened.

“Alright, fine you stupid lawn,” Merci stomped her foot menacingly, though she didn’t get the effect quite right. “I’ll just have Deceit set you on fire. How does that sound?”

There were sudden oofs as three angels were spit onto the sidewalk, the lawn’s shape bouncing back to normal almost immediately. The angels were understandably shell shocked, and didn’t move at first.

“…And the mailman,” Merci added, thinking of all the possible genetic mutations that could be detailed in the next issue… and how upset his wife would be. The mailman landed with a bit more grace that it’s previously captive, though that could be partly attributed to the lack of wings. He replaced a flashlight and a book in his mailbag, tipped his hat and went on his way.

“H-he brings a book?”

“You’d think he gets swallowed by a patch of killer grass every day with that kind of reaction.” Crypt got to his feet, trying to brush some of the dirt out of his jeans while bottling up any and all signs of shock. He’d be damned of he let this get to him… at least in front of such a pretty lady. He’d never be able to live it down.

“Oh, he does.” Merci assured them, taking pleasure in how pale Darius and to a lesser extent Crypt’s face became.

“W-what’s that?” Titus asked, more preoccupied with just how close Freddy was than anything else.

“Oh, that’s just Freddy. You’re going to see a lot of him during your time imposing on my sister.” Merci may have looked like a picture of innocence, but her words were anything but. Titus, having picked up on it, gulped. He just had to find the deceptively innocent one attractive.

“This assignment is going to be the death of me,” Crypt muttered to himself.

‘You’d think they’ve never seen a moving plant before.’ Freddy almost looked like he was pouting, but it didn’t seem to matter to the angels before him.

“I-it moved!” Darius bolted, running as fast as his legs would carry him, with both Crypt and Titus hot on his trail.

‘Assholes.’

“Come on, Freddy, I’ll get you some fertilizer.” Merci promised, and Freddy’s leaves lifted in response. They headed inside, the day’s mail all but forgotten on the front lawn until Etna went out and retrieved it later in the day.