Fire and shadow ruled alone.
Her eyes were coals, her lips were crimson blood, and her hair was silken smoke. The room was dark and silent save the dancing flames in the fireplace and the tick of the towering grandfather clock. Her long legs were crossed upon the velvety couch, and her feet wore pressed into scarlet pumps. Her nails were the dark red of old, dead blood.
It was difficult to discern much in the chalky dimness. There were no windows, and the only door was firmly latched. The walls were streaked with something dark and smudged. It smelled like smoke and expensive perfume. The rug was smooth against bare feet, and next to a cold cup of tea lay a curved knife, stained red and crusty. But she did not need knives to kill; her words, sugar and vinegar, were poison, too. In her smooth hand rested an exquisitely cut wineglass, and thick red wine swished whenever she moved, hissing sinisterly like a snake’s lullaby.
She took a long sip; red lipstick stained the rim like blood. She traced a single ringed finger along the rim of the glass, fighting a roaring impatience. Her dark eyes, permanently adjusted to darkness, found the clock’s face once more and she felt rage boil inside her, sing in her ears, whispering psalms of torture and screaming and death, death, death.
It was sudden movement, almost too quick to catch; blink-and-miss. A ragged growl escaped her lips and the beautiful wineglass was soaring, whistling softly, until it crashed to the wooden floor with an earsplitting sound, puncturing the elastic silence, echoing like she was in a cave, dark red liquid pooling among glittering glass fragments like blood. Her chest heaved, and there was a sudden violet illumination as if she’d lit a candle, and alien words tumbled from her lips, and the floor was shaking and the walls were trembling, and everything in the room crashed to the floor with a sound like an earthquake or a suffocating hurricane. Her eyes blazed as bright as twin blackened suns.
He entered then, noticing the destruction that still rained and lay around him, and his breathing hitched; his face paled with fear. “My Lady,” he gasped. “I’m sorry I was late, I was delayed—”
Her hand shot forward in mid-air, her eyes flashed purple, and his voice abruptly dropped off. He whitened, making a chocking sound. His hands fumbled to his throat.
Her voice was crushed velvet. “Tell me, Mitchell, what was your mission purpose?” Her words curved as rich as the spilled wine.
He chocked more, the veins popping in his forehead, until her hand dropped impassively to her lap and he slid panting to the floor, sucking in air like a drowning victim.
“Intel,” he whispered, still gasping. He knew his fate then, and fought death’s shadow like a bluebird struggling from its nest. “I was to—to watch them.”
Her red lips curved, but her black eyes still were alight with a livid fire. They danced like the flames in the fireplace, alive. “Very good, Mitchell.” she said in the tone of one humoring a naughty child. “And what have you learned?”
“They are unaware of their talents.” said Mitchell quickly, breathing rapidly. “They radiate a power masked by ignorance.”
“Interesting.” she observed without inflection, uncrossing her long legs. “That is all?”
“My Lady, I—”
She laughed then, like a snake’s hiss or a spider’s whisper. He gasped, thin as a thread. “You have kept me waiting.”
“Please,” whispered the man, still crouched in a heap upon the floor, shivering and wrapping his arms around his trembling body. “Have I not been a loyal servant?” he demanded desperately, tear springing to his eyes.
“You have indeed, Mitchell.” She rose to her feet then, exposing her pale skin, long legs, low-cut black dress that hugged her curves, her dark tumbling hair, wild as a lion’s mane but as beautiful as a black hole, the kind of elegant, breathtaking beauty that both terrified and awed. “And that is why I regret this.” The word—regret— felt strange on her tongue; it was not one she used often.
He began to quiver, his pulse pounding in his exposed neck, the fear of what lay beyond this life, the fate of his soul, snatching his breath away. Would it hurt? he wondered vaguely.
She did not use her poisonous words this time. She had lifted the knife carefully from the table, stroking the sharpened blade with her finger, lightly enough it did not draw blood, a kind of inverted and wrong adoration and love her withered heart could not provide, a love of the kill and the adrenaline that made her head buzz, like a lover’s waltz. She stepped to the fallen man, stroking her hand across his cheek almost lovingly, soft as a butterfly’s kiss.
“Mitchell,” she whispered softly, drawing back her hand.
“My Lady,” whimpered the man. His last words.
She sliced open his throat without further hesitation, letting loose a sort of relieved breath, and his open throat gushed red and pulsed with dying desperation to keep his heart beating, and his head lolled.
He was dead.
His glassy eyes were still open, as if fastened on something she could not see. She straightened stepped away; death disgusted her in an odd sort of way, though she was often the bringer of it.
She shook her head, brushed off her dress with bloodstained fingers and departed without another glance, neatly sidestepping the broken, reddened body, the glittering shards of glass, and glimmering puddle of blood, her crimson heels clicking faintly in the elastic silence.