Rente Moreau's Story

Tick. Tick. Tick.

If a sound could be ovular, the clock striking 12 would be just that; smooth and cold, like ice, ringing through the expensive stone and only being shattered in its purity by the noise of a lock being clicked into place before turned by a key and made safe to enter. Then, human noises. Laughter, voices weaving in and out of conversation, exuberant and barely winded. A couple parchment bags are dropped on the floor outside, and the door is swung open.

Three figures walk into the cold and empty blackness. The middle one spreads out his arms, the two women surrounding him softly hooking their manicured fingers around the crooks of his sharp, well-dressed elbows, giggling and receiving his words as if pieces of candy were falling from his pale lips. He is still wearing his sunglasses as he pauses, whips them off for dramatic effect, and claps. The lights turn on. He strokes the women's faces with his hands and laughs joyfully. Despite his kindness, they are unfit to be in his space. They are Christmas lights strung across a huge, black hound.
"Welcome, welcome! I suppose you've never seen a place like this. I designed it myself--it's all very fine, isn't it? Oh, are you scared? I'll turn on another lamp, dear. Perhaps it is very dark. Nevertheless, make yourselves at home."

His teeth flash as they laugh and thank him with their tinkling voices. Rente's eyes are very, very red.

It's very likely that these two do not assume anything from him, even with his red eyes. Most assume that his other unusual facial features are because of plastic surgery; after all, in their business as evening companions to very rich men, slouching over their bodies over drinks and music, they've seen much more extreme. It's just subtleties...things that make him striking. Things that you wouldn't notice right away on someone's body, like the acute sharpness of a cheekbone, the curve of their cupid's bow, the odd glossy shimmer of their hair. And those eyes...

But he's not creepy, like the other man, a rich politician who they were previously hired to escort who pushed them around and used them as dolls.

"Come, come, come. I insist. Look, I even have tap here. It's good to drink some water after all the wine I saw him buy you. You see, alcohol remains in a person's body for a very long time if it isn't downsized by something else. It isn't poison, of course! But it's enough to make girls like you sick if you don't take care of yourselves!" With a concerned flair of his hand, Rente crosses the room and turns on the lamp above the countertop, running a couple long nails across the grooves of the marble and pausing when he holds up two crystal glasses, blinking from each woman.

"Well? Tap or seltzer? either will do fine, for your condition." They sit down on the couch, and are suddenly overwhelmed with the fact that a beautiful man stole them away into the night and subsequently had them fired when he accidentally viewed their misuse. And they begin to shake.

"My cute princesses," He gently hands them the glasses after pressing his palm to their foreheads. "My beautiful girls." He smiles, a gentle chuckle escaping from deep in his throat, his eyelashes shadowing his cheeks. "I hope you agree that leaving yourselves in my care for a while is best for you." They nod honestly. "And that the man you were previously hired by was not an acquaintance you would like to keep." Another nod in agreement.

"You must tell me more about him, all right? Your confessions must not fall on dull ears...That would be simply wicked to you to keep it a secret for that long. You must have been in such pain. I am sorry, my girls. I am sorry that such an awful, awful man was to do such horrible things to you." The clock is at half past, and it's best for them to leave now. He gives them his coat, he tells them to call him if they need anything else under the next couple days, and that he'll keep them on tab as much as he can, and that of course he is a very busy man so it may be with some difficulty that he is able to see them every week but he'll keep their paycheck full. They agree happily, and like that, Rente Moreau has given them new lives.

He has also gathered full intel from the closest companions of the rivaling politician to the one he's been in cahoots with since early spring, and he's going to use the information of the girls' abuse (and the following sex scandal to his wife, as this man is long married) to completely tank his career. The door closes, and Rente spins on his heels, bursting into hysterical peals of laughter and dragging his hands across his face. He's done his job--the one that he hired himself to carry out. Artfully bending humanity into despair! Black winding sheets of energy suddenly conspire out of thin air around his hands and feet, sculpting them into sharp, obsidian-like claws.

There is a bird fluttering against his window. His laughter subsiding, he winds there, his hips swaying softly, an unusually sultry gait for a businessman as he strips off his coat languidly and tosses it on the couch. He opens the window, breathes in the city smog, and lets the raven fly in, catching its letter in the air.
Dear Mr. Moreau,

Due to recent events regarding the daughter of Greed, Vanessa, it has come to my attention that the human race is becoming more and more aware of your less than mortal existence. As you can already gather this is not a very good thing. You and the other sins were sent to earth to taint it and if you're discovered you will be destroyed or worse, put on display like zoo animals. I highly suggest all of you return to where you started and discus this matter further as well as figure out the best coarse action to take in these trying times. A notice as been sent to the others as well.

Do not disappoint me.
Do not become a mistake.
Signed,
Your Father


A slow, slick smile crosses Rente's face. He traces the Your Father with a strange fascination, a hum, like a purr, reverberating in his thin chest. His sculpted black claw punctures the period at the end of mistake, and he looks up to the security camera on his left. He smiles, eyes widening. Rente speaks into thin air.

"Ah, would you look at that! This life is becoming more wonderful than previously expected."

Heavy snow swirled around them in the grey, foggy atmosphere as they trudged through the forest. Aj-Sha hugged her coat closer to her as they followed an all to familiar path, her face holding an somber expression uncharacteristic to her. This way flooded her mind with memories of the past.

She bit her lip anxiously and tried to focus only on the sound of her crunching footsteps and ignore the faint feeling of blood on her hands and face. When Aj-Sha had left this shelter she had left her secret with it. Now that she was returning it was too. She shivered and took a deep breath, the hot air flowing a frosty white through her slightly parted lips.

She rolled her shoulders, readjusting her backpack full of her personal wares and looked up at her eight (in a way) siblings. Aj-Sha could remember clearly the day they were formed and given life. Child-sized and dumped in the middle of nowhere, naive and surging with immense power. They had no knowledge of how to control it and no one to teach them. She scowled under her breath as she remembered how they learned the hard way that mortals would give no help either, and they weren't to pleased with those who were different. She still flinched expecting the searing pain of licking flames whenever she heard the word "witch." They may be immortal but that didn't mean they didn't feel pain.

They were driven out by mobs and that's why they made this shelter. If no one was going to help them they were going to learn to survive themselves. And they did.

They all stopped outside the invisible barrier further hiding their home from the outside world. It was they only present they had received from their supposed father. Small, faint glows of their colors that only they could see marked its edge. Aj-Sha swallowed and gathered herself, knowing whaat was to come with crossing it. She reached out and pushed her hand through, wincing as she watched it turn from human to one that belonged to her true form. The barrier hid their home but they could not hide from themselves inside.

She clenched her jaw and took another deep breath through clenched teeth, closing her eyes, she moved the rest of herself inside. She gasped and coughed as power surged through her at a rapid rate. Her nails dug into the ground and her tail flicked back and forth as she waited out the pain. Her eyes flared and blue energy poured out of her mouth creating a pool around her. As well as taking away the power to change their form it also temporarily magnified their power beyond control instantly. And it was not fun. Such a sudden release of so much power would leave a lesser being dead. It felt like a bomb going of in every inch of her body.

After about 30 seconds the pain started to die and Aj-Sha's control returned. She panted heavily as she fought to regain her breath.

She looked at those around her, "You know dears, even when we did that every day I never got used to it."