The local pub in this town was not nearly as good as the funhouse had been, Xana decided as she looked around to where all the regulars were sitting and gawking at her human form. Of course they would be--she was the most attractive thing in this whole forsaken city! She thrived on the attention and the stares and the feeling of mistrust--one that she did not always receive the opportunity to sample, but left a slightly sour aftertaste--that accompanied this inflated self-worth. This was how she fed, after all: by charging into situations and doing something to make herself the center of attention.
Speaking of "fed", she was rather fed up with the fact that she was the only one of the three in her group that had actually been allowed to leave the damn cathedral in the first place. She absent-mindedly drummed her fingers against the table she sat at, taking a sip from a glass of red wine every so often to help pass the time. She was bored, and despite the ideas of manipulating these mortals to amuse her for a bit, people would probaly begin to become suspicious if their once-sleepy town was suddenly overrun by madness because of the appearance of an otherworldly-red-haired maiden. Of course, the other infiltraitors might be rather amused by this tale, but for the time being, she was the only one who mattered at this point; the fate of the world, as little as she cared for this particular plane of existence, was at stake.
Out of the corner of one eye, the demon noticed a young man getting up from his seat and taking a few steps closer to her. He was curious--he reeked of this scent, as most who first approached her did, especially the young ones. Oh, they were so naive in thinking that they could potentially figure her out! She had centuries at least on these fleshbags, and they had no idea at all!
"Uh, 'scuse me, ma'am," the young man bowed his head and spat on the ground by the feet of her table.
Curious herself, Xana raised an eyebrow at this somewhat uncouth display of behavior. "You have my attenion..." she purred in a neutral tone. "Best you don't do anything to lose it now..."
"Well, uh..." she noticed the man's face turn slightly red. Of course he had not been expecting an answer like that--it was rather unlady-like, after all. She could feel his confusion and his fear rising a bit, melding with the tang of mistrust from the others that were watching. Somehow, she liked this combination. It brought a bit of a smirk to the corner of her mouth, but she did her best to mask it as much as possible.
"Come now, darling... You obviously had something important to tell me, otherwise you would have stayed with your friends and bad-mouthed me from the corner..." The red-headed woman took another sip of her wine, not budging from her chair but placing her free hand on her leg and massaging the bits of exposed flesh there.
The young man was flustered now--she did not need to feel the apprehension wafting off of the boy's skin to know that he was blushing profusely. In the limited light of the bar, she could even make out a bit of a glistening building up across his arms--he was sweating This was just too easy for her!
"Ma'am... 's j-jus' we n-n-nevah seen you 'round th-th-these--"
"P-p-p-parts?" Xana finished the man's sentence, even going as far as to mock his sudden development of a stutter. "Of course you haven't, and neither have your friends. I just blew into town yesterday and have found that you... [b]bore[/i] me here..." The demon placed the glass down on the table after taking yet another sip of wine. "Why don't you try doing something different, hmm? Excite me..." She stood up from her chair and flashed a wicked smirk at the man, figuring that he would have no idea how to react to this unexpected turn of events.
Suddenly, the man's face went pale as the redhead brushed her fingers down his arm. "M-m-m-ma'am..." he stuttered, trying to regain his composure from losing control of the situation. "I'unno what y-y-y-yer talk-k-kin' 'bout, b-b-but y'b-b-b-b-best..." his voice trailed off as the woman walked around, trailing her fingers around his lower back.
"Go back to your friends..." she whispered, leaning close to the man's ear. "Let them know that if they want to add a bit of spice to their otherwise complacent lives, they'll come find me later..." With another quick brush of her fingers across the man's cheek, she grabbed the glass from off the table, finished her wine, and then brought the glass back to the counter and handed it back to the barkeep with a quick smirk and a wink.
"'Bout time y'd'cide tah leave..." the surly man grunted as he took the glass away. "Reg'l'rs been spook'd e'er since ya came in, lady... Ain't nev'r seen no strang'rs waltz in 'ere 'fore, 'spesh'ly dress'd like tha'..."
The red-haired woman placed a few coins on the counter and rolled out her neck as the trembling man slowly made his way back to his compatriots in the corner of the bar. "Don't think of me as a stranger then,,," her voice oozed, the words wrapping themselves around the barkeep's arms and torso as she winked again. "Think of me as the long-lost lover from a dream you've never had..." With that, the red-haired woman made her way to the front of the bar, raising her eyebrow slightly in the direction of the group of regulars in the corner and smirking out of the corner of her mouth before walking out the door.
Of course, their emotions lingered and followed her as she left--she would not perish the thought of leaving them behind! All sorts of different sensations wafting through the walls--disgust, confusion, curiosity, lust--each one of them blending together for the demon to feed from.
But there was something else... A tug, a pull beckoning her to travel away from the city. It throbbed and pulsed with her very being, sympathetic to her existence despite how faint she felt it. This sensation was rather familiar to her--most definitely demonic in nature. Was it... a gate? She pondered the situation--she could wait another day or two, spend her time feeding and manipulating the mortals as best as she could in the meantime... plus that angel--what his (or was it a her?) name was, she could not remember--reacted so well to her prodding... or she could go and explore on her own--the call was out there, and honestly she was unsure as to when the others in her group would be available to assist her in her endeavors...
Angels and exorcists be damned... Let's take a look at the gate...
So the demon set off on her own accord, following the ebb and flow of the gate's energies. Of course, it would take a while to get out there, and unfortunately, it was getting rather dark out...
"Nothing a little fire can't fix..." Xana smiled to herself as she felt the skin of her human form begin to melt away in a flash of heat. She was far enough away from the other city at this point that she could see it on the horizon and know that she had not been followed out this far, especially by any of those foolish mortals that thought they might actually be worthy of her time... They had another thing coming if they really wanted her that badly after her little stunt in the bar...
The demon slithered across the rocky ground, a small orb of fire burning above her palm acting as a beacon. She could feel the energy of the gate nearby now--it was not nearly as strong as other gates in the past had been, but she could most definitely distinguish it from any other source of power that could possibly exist out here. In fact, she had found it strange that she had neither seen nor heard any sort of rogue activity that would really have warranted her attention... Perhaps the town she had just left behind had been dealing with something along those lines--they were close enough to the gate, after all--but it wasn't her problem now; if the angel and the exorcist ever decided to get off their lazy asses and do what they were assigned to do, they would be the ones to take care of it, not Xana.
Over one rocky outcrop, she came across a large pile of rubble in the middle of a clearing. As the demon made her way closer to the stones, she saw that there were strange markings in the stones--unusual runes that no human should ever want to decipher, lest their minds warp into twisted abomanations of their former selves... not that demons minded the hubris of the mortals and chaos they would cause when their minds broke. At the demon's touch, the runes began to glow blood-red.
Xana chuckled. Of course the gate would be broken--they had warned her, after all. Had the exorcist or the angel been here to help, they would do nothing but offer unnecessary moral support at this point. This was the reason the demons were bothered to help at all, despite the fact that they all knew that their pride as gatekeepers and gaolers was on the line because of this sudden exodus of rogue wraiths.
The demon placed both of her hands on the stone, muttering in some incomprehensible language all the while. The light few more and more intense as a dull humming sound began to reverberate through the night. Stones suddenly began to levitate, whirling around in the air before rearranging themselves in a bizarre insignia pattern in the air. Xana chanted louder and louder, faster and faster, the stones not intimidating her at all. The light of the runes was growing more and more intense, bathing the ground around the demon in an eerie red hue.
Suddenly, Xana threw her hands toward the sky, uttering one final powerful syllable. Another flash of light--suddenly, the stones had disappeared. The only sign that there had been anything in this area at all were the outlines of light that intensified along the ground as the demon slithered closer and over their location. She smirked and rolled her head around on her neck as she turned back toward the direction of the town she had come--
Xana...
Atop the rocky outcrop she had slithered over moments earlier was a cat with a red collar around its neck.
"What are you doing here now?" Xana growled, not satisfied at all with this new development. Usually, the cat meant that she was needed elsewhere, although she had no idea where she would be forced to run off to this time...
The Apokailon requests your prescence in Resmyrd once more, Xana... The feline continued to stare straight into the demon's eyes as if to challenge her authority.
"First I'm forced to leave without the damn fleshbag and the angel, and now I have to go back!?" Xana could feel the rage building inside. She felt the flames springing to life across her arms. "If Treylion wants to speak to me so badly, why does he not come to me out here in the middle of nowhere? Does he not realize that I'm already doing what he's asking me to do?" She knew that the venom behind her words was ill-placed, but at this point it did not matter nearly as much to her.
The Apokailon personally requested you to meet with him... The only information he was allowed to divulge to me was that he had some information that might be of great interest to you or any of the other demons for that matter... The cat leapt closer toward the snakey demon, unfazed by the display of pyromancy that Xana showcased. He seemed especially interested in making sure he told you before anyone else...
The flames flickered away from across Xana's arms as she raised an eyebrow toward the feline. "Secrets, eh...?" she mused, rolling her shoulders out to reduce the stiffness building up--that human body cooped her up more than she was actually comfortable with. "Fine, I'll humor him... but only if I don't have to walk back in that ridiculous human skin..." The demon shivered at the thought, which was ironic considering she had just set her skin ablaze only moments earlier.
That can be arranged...