Posted by AlOmega on August 27, 2004 at 18:43:08:
...from an upcoming story. Maybe someone will like it....
It was deadly quiet in Ariel’s office at the Hazelcroft Building that evening. Everyone, it seemed, had gone home, and the only noise to be heard was the squeaking of the wheels of the janitor’s rolling trash can.
There was a rustling noise at the keyhole, although oddly enough no key was inserted. Then the door swung open and a figure stood in the doorway, glancing this way and that. It was a short but broadly built individual, and strange, though it was, the flickering light from the outside hallway seemed to bend right around him. That had to be the case, because the janitor who was heading off down the hallway would certainly have made some sort of noise had he actually noticed the individual standing there. But he didn’t notice or say anything, which was probably just as well since the janitor had a wife and three kids at home, and if he had spied the person in the doorway, he would have been very dead very quickly.
The dark figure stepped through the doorway, and the door closed noiselessly, which was also fairly impressive considering the hinges tended to squeak something fierce. The dark figure squinted in the dimness. He was more or less prepared to come back here every evening, for as long as it took, because it was what she wanted and he but lived to fulfill her desires. He was rather pleased to see, however, a light flickering toward the back, from the area that he presumed would be Ariel’s office.
His nostrils flared. Something felt….off. Then he realized what it was.
When he had been approaching the front door to the offices, he had smelled rats along the way. Rats scuttling in the walls, rats scouting for food behind the closed doors of the other offices. But in this office, in the place that was inhabited by this Ms. Ariel, there were no rats. He couldn’t understand why that might be. Not only did he not smell rats, he didn’t smell anything living. Which made him wonder whether there really was anyone in the back office, or if someone had just carelessly left the lights on.
No….no, he definitely heard something. Heard it, but didn’t smell it. He pressed the bridge of his nose, blew out, and tried to figure whether or not his sinuses were congested. Then, very slowly, one foot gliding in front of the other and making no sound, he crept toward the back office. He found the door open, the light dim but more than sufficient.
A woman was seated behind the desk. She looked as if she was waiting for him, with her fingers interlaced and folded neatly on the desktop. She had green eyes that glinted in the dimness.
“Hello,” she said, “I’m Miss Basil.”
“Hello,” said the dark man uncertainly. Once more his nostrils flared, trying to pull in a whiff of her, endeavoring to seek her essence. Nothing. She might as well not have been there at all.
She smiled, “I know what you’re trying to do,” she told him, and she didn’t rise from behind the desk so much as she seemed to uncoil. “I know who you are. I know what you are. But you do not know me, and you find that….disturbing.”
“Look, uhm….I can come back some other time,” said the demon, chucking a thumb in the other direction. But the woman did not turn her gaze from him, and he was transfixed by it for reasons he couldn’t understand.
“That would certainly be your intention. Why? To set some sort of trap that would snap upon Ariel? Or just to kill her outright? Yes, yes…that’s the most likely. I know your type, and I know your master. You serve her. As for now, I serve Ariel…for now I’m indentured to her for another decade or so. After that, I’m free to kill her - or try to. Or perhaps I won’t. I haven’t decided yet.”
“Who - ARE you?” The demon was beginning to be a bit disconcerted by the fact that he wasn’t moving, feeling as if it was coming from outside him rather than within.
“You know. Don’t you.”
She smiled at him, and it was a terrible thing to see, and then he didn’t know. His legs trimbled, but still didn’t move. “Ba - Ba - Basiliskos…….,” he whispered.
“Ah, you know my name of old. ‘Little King - or Queen” in this case. That’s what it means. But I suppose you already knew that. You are an ancient Italian demon. So you would appreciate that it only seems appropriate that one queen serves the needs of another, does it now? Now…… I know what you’re thinking,” she said as she came around the desk. “You’re thinking that I’m suppose to be able to kill with my stare. I’ll tell you a secret,. That’s an exaggeration. What I do merely seems like killing you. You see, demon, I perceive my victims for what they are. They have no secrets from me. I look into them, through them, and in an instant, know all their most private desires and aspects. Things that they don’t want anyone to know. Things that they themselves do not know about themselves. But I see it all, and they know I do, and then they see it, too, and they’d rather die than live with that knowledge. At which point…….. Well I attend to that. Would you like a demonstration?”
The demon tried to shake his head but couldn’t.
She looked at him, looked through him, and her eyes went from green to jade green and then green flecked with red. The dark creature sobbed deep in his throat, and his bowels released, but since he wasn’t human, what dribbled down his pants legs was more like a thick black tar, smoking and burning a nasty little hole in the rug. The demon then knew himself more than any demon could or should - more than any living thing could or should.
“You want to die now, don’t you?” asked Miss Basil. But it wasn’t a question.
“Y-yes,” stammered the demon.
“All right.” And the Basilisk opened wide her elastic jaw, her great snake form elongating, and swallowed him whole. After she had done so, she let out a long, satisfied sigh, because it had been quite some time since she’d had Italian food. She sat there all night, savoring the fullness in her belly, feeling relaxed and languid but nevertheless alert, and when one foolish rat, not heeding the warnings of others, strayed into the office, her tongue enfolded him in less than a moment, and then he was gone, providing a nice dessert.
Miss Basil decided she liked working with witches after all….
AlOmega