Posted by AlOmega on March 05, 2001 at 18:52:16:
Mystique walked along the night darkened street, moving in and out of shadow with Toofh gliding along
close to the walls half a block behind her. She wore a tight, short black skirt and a red top with narrow straps over the shoulders. On her bare arms were dozens of thin bracelets, cheap aluminum rounds tinted gold and silver, red and blue. Her boots were red patent leather and reached up past her knees. One hand rested on a large, red patent leather purse. The other arm swung free, the bangles clashed softly through the noise from the cars driving past and the sounds of the bars and all-night shops that lined this section of street. She’d pulled a glamour over herself, erasing the years until she seemed little more than a child. Maria’s age along with Maria’s looks. The moon was full; the sky clear of clouds. It was a good time to hunt for this prey.
She walked past girls standing in twos and threes beside the lights. One of the triads started toward her, but
Toofh gliding out of the shadows, bared his teeth. Gangs were known to back down. These were no
different. She stood under the lamp waiting. She could feel him out there tugging against the bind-cord,
circling round and round her. Under her breath, she sang the old words that called him to her. Over and
over and over and...
A gray For Taurus eased from the line of cars and stopped beside her. It was him. The poison in him nearly
choked her, but she strutted to the car and knocked on the window. The window slid down. She leaned in.
Her bangles clashing softly as they touched the metal. “Want a date, huh?”
“You’re new.” His voice was a reedy whisper. He wore a cowboy hat that shaded his face except for his
chin. He sat with one gloved hand on the wheel, the other out of sight beside him.
“Yeah,” she srugged. “You wanna talk, you pay my time.”
“Y-yes. That’s it. I-I’d like to talk.” The hidden hand came up holding some bills. Four fifties, fanned so
she could see and count them. “Uh. I have a place,” he said. “If-if you’llcome, spend the night....” He
leaned forward, put the bills on the dash, got out his wallet and took too more fifties from it.
“All night? You gotta come up with more’n that.”
Gloved fingers shaking a little, he took out two more fifties and added them to the pile. “That’s four
hundred. It’s all I-I’ve got,” he pleaded.
“Ok, mister. But I hold the money and if you get freaky, I’m outta there.”
“No, no. I don’t like that kind of thing. I promise you. Nothing like that.” He popped the lock. “H-Hurry,
please. I don’t like this place.”
She trotted around to the passenger side, opened the door and got in, reaching for the money on the dash.
There was a quick, cold gust of wind, then Toofh was in the back seat, crouching low and out of reach of
the rearview mirror.
He caught her wrist. “Not yet. Shut the door. I don’t want you grabbing it and running out on me.”
She shrugged, pulled the doro shut. This time when she reached for the money, he didn’t stop her. He just
trigggered the locks agan. She tucked the fifties into her purse and slouched in the corner of the seat,
watching him. Bait and control and don’t alarm the prey. Oh, he was good at this. It made her feel
sick to think of how he’d honed his skill.
He drove for a little while. Even though he was nervious, purpose drove him. Mystique was bothered so
much by his quietness that she was almost ready to start chewing her fake fingernails. Abruptly, they
stopped.
“I’ve got an office here. The building doesn’t look like much, I know, but my place is clean and private,
quite comfortable actually. There’s an espresso machine if you’d like coffee. You just sit here in the car
until I get the door unlocked. There’s no nightwatchman, so we can have a nice time without worrying
about nosy neighbors.” Before he opened the door, he slipped a small box from a slot in the dash. “Just sit
here and wait until I call you,” he repeated, then was out the door and in the shadowed alcove of the
building entrance before she could get a good look at him. She tried the door. It was locked again.
“Probably one of those remote control gadgets, Toofh. This one’s smooth”
A soft snort from the back seat.
“Yes. He doesn’t know us, does he? Be ready. I’ll give you all the time I can, but I don’t want to spook
him.”
Silent laughter.
“That was a bad pun, wasn’t it?” She took a tissue from her purse and wiped every surface she could
remember touching.
Curiosity.
“Fingerprints, Toofh. Nasty things to leave behind in the wrong places. These mortals keep records like you
wouldn’t believe and they get better at it all the time.”
He was back for her a moment later, opening the door for her with a clumsy courtesy that was suppose to
conceal the way he was using his glove to clean her prints off the handle. She was grimly amused by this
small irony because she had been wondering how she was going to manage that without alerting him. She
stood in the way so he couldn’t shut the door while she patted her bag, counted her bangles, ostensibly
making sure she had everything she had brought with her until the gust of cold air brushing past her legs told
her Toofh was out of this metal cage. The man took her arm, moved her aside, locked the door, and walked
her to the entranceway. His touch was light, but the way he was holding her, he could tighten his grip very
fast if she tried to get away. She pretended she didn’t notice.
His office was on the fourth floor. He stood aside and let her go in ahead of him, then followed, locking the
door behind him. Typical office; ordinary office. Trap-door spider. Walk into my parlor said the spider
to the fly. Yes indeed. He brushed past her, unlocked the door to the inner office, opened it, and
bowed her in. This room was much the same as the other - neat, reassuring. A big desk with a simulated
mahogany top and a black swivel chair behind it, with studs hammered along the seams in a fake Spanish
look. He touched her shoulder very lightly, his gloved fingers just brushing her. Then he stepped away.
“Would you mind taking off your clothes and sitting in the chair?”
“You’re paying, you get it.” She set her purse on the desk, opened it, and began pulling off her bangles.
She put them in the purse and brought out a small silver snuffbox. She walked over to him, swaying her
body, holding the box in the palm of her hand. “Some good shit. You wanna try?”
Before he could reply, she used her thumb to flick open the lid and blow the contents into his face. He held
his breath and grabbed at her, but Toofh was suddenly there between them, his shoulder slamming into the
man’s soft gut. He gasped, and before he could stop himself, breathed in the dust. A moment later he was
standing blank-faced as a shop window mannequin. She took the hat off him. Such an ordinary man.
Neither old or young. Somewhere around forty. Light brown hair, thin, receding at the temples. Round
face. Not fat but dough, the features blunted, almost embryonic.
“Eh, Toofh, you wouldn’t think that this was the face of a monster, would you?”
Impatience.
“You’re right. We’ll both feel cleaner after this is over.”
With Toofh walking in front of them, they moved through the dark streets to the park where the White
Ladies were waiting. Mistique took him by the elbows and pushed him into the gluey sphere of summoning.
He struggled a moment as that ambient force canceled the powder spell. But the trap-door Spider was
caught in a stickier web than any he had ever spun and step by step, fighting all the way, whatever cries he
might have made smothered by the high drone of the White Ladies, he was drawn to the bridge.
Mystique watched as long, pale hands caught his and pulled him into the circling dance. His face was a
silent scream, then he turned again, and all she saw was the back of his head.
“Not a nice end, Toofh,” she sighed, “though he deserves it more than most. Come on. I want to get out of
these horrible clothes.”
She glanced back one more time before she turned into the street where her apartment was. She could still
see the bridge and the silent circling figures. They would dance him round and round until the bones of his
feet were bare. Until all the life was sucked out of him and his bones would go into the water of that other
stream that this stream only echoed. The White Ladies danced for their dinner. The same dance was their
mourning dance for the dead Maria.
She shrugged and walked on, the demon Toofh ambling beside her.
“You still wanting to hang around this place, Toofh? If so, I’d better explain about bus travel and we’d
better reconfigure your form. I don’t think you’d like riding the baggage compartment."
Hi, once more. I have been considering a sequel or two - or maybe several using Toofh and his Mistress. This is the end of this story but more may follow....
AlOmega