Revelations

[Nil]

Each day that passes lets Riley put the strange happening further behind her. Maybe the scag was laced with something, it wouldn't have been the first time. In her head she tells herself she's over it, but when it's time for her next fix she instead takes it home.

When she gets back in to her apartment she draws the thin curtains closed, deadbolts her doors and windows and double checks the house. Of course she wasn't looking for the angel that showed up randomly, she's just being cautious about using junk in her own apartment. After she's content that no one is waiting for her, she puts on some Portishead and settles down in to her bean bag chair.

Twice a week at scheduled times. Every time she shoots up she tells herself she's not really an addict. Even when she looks at collapsed veins and searches for new ones. She is more of a long term subscriber, really. She lets go of the band around her arm as the heroin flows through her veins, sending her off to her own personal Eden.

It was happening again.

The bolt on the door spun slowly, the sounds of metal spinning were grating and ominous like those of the close-ups in horror movies. It opens at last, and again the same figure stands under the threshold, exactly as he had stood at the House. He invites himself in, closes behind him and joins the girl on her seat, wrapping his arm around her and leaning her closer to him.

"Do you really want to keep me out?" he whispers to her teasingly, followed by a brief and playful chuckle. The voice was masculine. At least that much she learned of the nature of her visitor.

The girl breathes in deeply, heavily, catching the scent that followed the figure. Even with his arms around her she couldn't do anything but lie still, barely twitching with the needle in her veins. It was enough to make a sane person go straight.

No more smack after this. Even as she thinks it, she knows she won't follow through.

He again takes the needle carefully and lays it aside, trying to avoid her hurting herself while struggling. He nuzzles and brushes her hair with his hands, more like a father than a lover. Caring, rather than passionate.

"I brought a gift for you. A small note." he says, producing it from his pocket and resting her on her lap.

"A little thing I wrote while I was thinking about you. It might help you believe that you are not losing your mind. I am very real, and I want you. I can show you a life like you cannot imagine. But you have to want it."

He stands up and brushes a bit of the lint it may have picked up, before heading back to the door and out. Locking again from the outside.

"I'll see you again soon."

It's worse than sleep paralysis. While her body was still under the influence of the drug, she was stuck mentally screaming. Maybe she will really quit this time. It is too much. As soon as she can move properly again she grabs the note that was left behind, lifting herself up to read it.

'Withering, my rose. I'll take you from this contemptible garden and keep you perfect until this earth withers.'

It was penned by hand with elegant calligraphy and black ink.

Other than the note, there was no other trace that the presence had been in the room at all. Other than the strange lingering scent of fragrant herbs and oils in her hair.

When she first reads the note, Riley only gives it a puzzled thought. She puts it on the coffee table, face down. Out of sight, out of mind. As the effect of the heroin wanes, she goes on about the rest of her evening. Laundry, calling contacts to get some new work done and some money in her pockets. Life as usual.

[Nil]

Three days later, when she would usually shoot up, she goes through the routine of preparation. She buys the Dust, goes home, lays out her tools and settles down. Laid out in front of her makes it all the more difficult but yet she resists. Her fingers drum along the table and she picks the note back up, flipping it over and over until the paper is soft and wrinkled between her fingertips. Fidgeting. Waiting.

He was gazing from the window above as it had become regular during these times of the night, every few nights. He couldn't avoid but drawing a wide smirk on his lips.

He didn't know if his visits would make her sink deeper, trying to find more pieces of the puzzle, or if it would scare her out of the vice. It was a tough situation, the chemical dependency would likely do most of the choosing for her. But eventually, the choice of joining him in the Danse would be completely hers.

Fuck. Fuck! He wasn't showing up. She is going crazy from the junk. Substance-abuse related psychosis. Riley had seen it used as a defense strategy in theoretical law and now here she is, seeing it exists outside of text books and paper. It's time to come off the heroin, at least for a while until her head is on straight again.

She flushes the smack she just bought, knowing full well if it's anywhere in her house she'll not be able to resist when the time comes. She checks the locks on the front door before going to the kitchen and starting to chug glass after glass of water. Riley really doesn't even want to do this. But when she starts seeing angels every time she shoots up it was just going too far.

Back in her room she makes sure there's nothing close at hand she can hurt herself with before barricading her own door with her night stand. With any luck she would be too weak to move it once the withdraws hit. If not... she'd probably get arrested once the police were called as she tore at her neighbors doors looking for tar.

She sits down at the edge of her bed, lying back and closing her eyes. The next forty-eight hours was going to be a living hell.

The step she had taken had been unpredictable, she was more determined than what he had credited her for. Good. He'd have to play his hand earlier and improvise with the changing conditions.

He descends from the empty apartment and crosses the street to the old and dirty building, up to her floor and knocks on her door. He'd not trespass while she could fight back, reel and scream for help.

Oh, just what she needs. Her temper would already be short without her normal scheduled fix and now she had company. Riley gets up and heads out of her bedroom, straight to the door and throwing it open.

She expects the police. She expects drug runners asking for help or looking to kill her. She expects anything other than the figure she sees in front of her.

"No shit." She stutters.

"Good evening, Riley." Anasztaz says, smiling.

Even now that she could see him clearly, free from the haze of the drug, his presence was still puzzling. The borders of sex blurred completely, and only his voice might have hinted at any kind of genre.

He stood with both his hands clasped behind his back, with an assessing gaze upon his eyes, trying to measure every movement and word. Acting in the wild was something he was familiar with, but there were always risks.

"I didn't want us to meet like this the first time, but I don't think there's much choice now."

"No fucking way." Denial and sarcasm had suited her thus far in life and she wasn't about to just abandon that just because she has a super model deity at her front door. She takes a step back, opening the door wide.

"Come in if you want. Stand out there and you'll get mugged." She waits for him to enter before closing the door up behind him. "Want to explain all this to me?"

"What is there to explain?" Anasztaz says, stepping into the now familiar room. He knew the layout like he had lived in it himself.

"That I've watched over you, and that I want you to join me? You know this, I've told you that before."

He tries to remain calm, even though his Beast was urging him to leash her with snares of allure she couldn't resist. He reeled it all back in, it would do him a disservice now and in the long run.

"I can offer you a new life, but I cannot tell you about it without taking you. It is a matter of faith."

[Nil]

"Just go with you? Where the hell are you from where that would work?" Riley asks indignantly, picking up on Anasztaz's accent. She had no idea where from, but it certainly wasn't American.

"Russian mob, maybe?" A hazarded guess, she sits down at her coffee table, looking up at him. The man before her had snuck in and touched her before, she's aware that he could have taken her away at any time.

Anasztaz chuckles amusedly, walking towards where she sat and stopping at a comfortable distance from her, letting his arms hang down his sides.

"No, I am not part of any organization you'd know." he clarifies, next she'd have asked him if he was with the interpol, likely. He didn't want to keep going in tangents.

"I told you it is a matter of faith. But I didn't lie to you when I spoke to you before. I can make you eternally beautiful, immortal. I can open your eyes to a world you didn't know existed. There would be some prices to pay, as always, but I am sworn to not speak of them with those who are... unenlightened."


"I'm not going anywhere with you." Defiant in the face of.. whatever he is, or whatever he thinks he is more like it. She thought him delusional or an addict or followed her home.

"So, bye bye."

"Truly. Would you close your eyes to an epiphany that would change your whole perception of the world?" Anasztaz crosses his arms, studying her closely.

"Is it a matter of trust? I could have done anything I wished while you couldn't resist me if I wished you ill. Yet I just made sure you were well, and that no one caused you harm."

"Maybe you're a serial killer and this is how you get your kicks." Riley wrinkles her nose up, staring at the man ruefully. "Pushing people to follow you, so you can say whatever happens to them is their own fault? Why make this offer to me anyhow?"

"Because you're unique. You are fascinating. A true rose grown from the decay of our city. I couldn't stand the idea to see you wither and die." Anasztaz says, shaking his head.

"You're perfect for the life ahead of you, if you'd only join me. Here... you will only be trapped. You have too much potential to live caught in this vicious circle."

"For the life ahead of me?" Riley looks around her shitty apartment and back at the immaculate figure. The idea that he might take her away from this and get her life back on track is appealing. It's a nice fantasy, but that's all it is.

"Just get out."

"Regrettable, but as you wish. I will not do anything against your will. I was forced into this and I grew resentful, even though now I appreciate the gifts I was given." Anasztaz says, reaching for his pocket and pulling a small envelope. He offers it forward, between two of his fingers.

"If you change your mind, open it. I will be in that address the night due for your next visit to the House. If you don't come, you will never see me again."

Riley stares at the envelope. What does she care for risks? Was her life really so valuable? The truth of it is she simply doesn't want to be tortured to death, but dying alone wasn't such a scary prospect. She was trying to quit cold turkey off heroin, when she's due to visit him again she'd likely still be clawing at the floor and begging to die.

"I'll go now." If it gets too bad she figures she can still bite her own tongue off and bleed out.

"No, that is not how it works." Anasztaz says, shaking his head.

He was tempted, his Beast was urging him to take her here and now. He clenched his teeth slightly and tried to gather all his temperance about him.

"Buy more dust and enjoy it tonight if you must. Try to enjoy life as you know it now, leave all your outstanding affairs settled, ponder upon it. Once the night comes, I will be waiting for you."

"Enjoy my life? You've been watching me, yeah? Tell me please what it is I exactly have to enjoy." Riley clings to her anger once again, finding it grounds her to an otherwise unbelievable situation.

"If you wish to forsake the opportunity I am giving you, I will not go against it. However, do remember I offered it." Anasztaz says, narrowing his eyes analytically.

"Prepare a clean set of clothes. I'll be waiting for you downstairs."

As he descended he called a cab and gave them the address. He would have preferred to have more time to prepare, but it was perhaps best to use the momentum.

Maybe the cab driver would remember her when this whole situation inevitably goes to shit. When they find her dead in the woods, she wonders what they'll say at her unattended funeral. That her landlord remembered her just because she was the only tenant to pay the rent on time every month? Maybe her dealer could mention what a reliable paycheck she was. So many thoughts race through her head as she shoves a change of undergarments, jeans and a t-shirt in to a plastic 7-Eleven bag.

She locks up and heads out of her apartment and downstairs, expecting to see that it was all just a hallucination after all.

[Nil]

By the time she arrives, he had already managed to hail a cab. The timer was running, and thus the driver didn't seem to mind. He opens the door and holds it open for her, before entering the cab himself and voicing the address.

He remains silent the rest of the trip, and only until they get to the address given he gives his thanks and pays with a decent tip.

The place was an old property, looking like it had been evicted. It was reminiscing of the House.

"Here we are."

Alarm bells start going off in Riley's head. After the cab pulls away she looks back and swallows hard. What the fuck am I doing? She looks at the house and back at the man who brought her here. Unless he hid a gun in there, she figures she can take him or at least get away.

"Would not recommend you bring any other first dates here I gotta say. Really doesn't help the whole serial killer vibe." She waits for him to continue on, deciding not to give him her back.

"You've visited places just as bad to pass out, don't worry." Anasztaz says, turning and trying to give her a reassuring smile. As hard as that was in a condition like this.

"You'll understand the significance of this place, and why it was necessary. But... If you wish to leave, this is your last chance. I'll pay the cab back. If you follow me in, there's no coming back to your old life."

"You mean I won't wake up tomorrow afternoon in the bad part of town with needles in my arms? Sign me up." Riley's voice has returned to neutral, emotionless. Back to the tough girl routine to hide how absolutely terrified she is.

"As you say." Anasztaz says, motioning forward with his hand and walking forward.

He opens the door and holds it open for her, allowing her in before he follows her into the old and derelict house.

"This isn't actually your house, is it?" Riley asks as she begins to walk around the dusty, mold ridden entry room. This was a health hazard on its own, not that she hadn't inhaled enough decay at the various places she frequented.

"Weird you want me to trust you rather blindly but you won't show me to your real place."

Anasztaz shrugs helplessly.

He waited until she turned to face him before he unleashed his allure at whichever extent he could. He wouldn't have explained her every step and have her follow willingly, or assaulted her and risk she getting away.

It would be done in a way he'd minimize all risks.

Why was she so worried before? This man, that she doesn't even know the name of, is certainly on the level. Riley gazes up at him with artificial adoration, docile as a lamb.

Satisfied with her reaction, he smiles and beckons her close, offering his open arms. As she clutches him, he wraps his arms around her gently and brushes the hair from the side of her neck and leans in. The pain lasts for a second before she is engulfed by the pleasant numbness of the kiss.

As her life is fading, he gently lowers her to the ground, kneeling with her. Gazing at her eyes in her last moments. He wished he could have seen other than the fake merciful peace he had given her with his craft, but likely it would have been just confusion and rage. This was for the best.

He bites into his wrist and presents it forward, willing a few drops of his blood to drip into her pale lips.

False sense of affection or not, she is quite aware of her impending death. There wasn't any fear in her eyes, but the smirk on her lips reached all the way up her face even when the blood touched down. I knew he was going to kill me. Saying 'I told you so' to yourself isn't exactly comforting though and she lets her eyes drift closed with what she believes is her last thoughts.

He willed his wounds away and cradled her in his arms, and then her consciousness returns in full and painful force. Every nerve connection, every inch of skin aching like it had suddenly been torn, ripped and then remade.

"Welcome back." Anasztaz whispers, still holding her close.