[???? Crimson and Clover – Tommy James.]
IT STOPPED RAINING TWO HOURS later. And by noon, a balmy sun shined full and rosy in the skies. The blue of the heavens were cleaner. The air was fresher. The woody smell of moist earth and mildew pervading the Emberfall Estate.
It was in this terraformic silence that Ravenna de Vries opened her eyes from a long sleep that seemed like ages of shut-eye.
Long dark lashes fluttered as she blinked teary green eyes to her surroundings. Firstly, this wasn't her room she noticed. Not the rundown attic her gracious lady boss at the Rhobine Inn pitifully rendered her. Nope! Not at all.
This room, the chamber she woke up in, was built with so much finesse it was hard for her to conceive the idea of living in it. It was large and furnished grandly, and had a rotund feel about the walls. So that when she sat up on the monstrous bed, it felt like she stared out from the perch of an eagle's nest.
"Fuck me." Ravenna sighed. The bed dipped as she slipped for the edge.
She rarely cussed. But this very moment demanded it.
This had to be the kind of Baroque architecture the authors of Fairytales did sketch above their stories. The scarlet drapes by the long windows swished in the fresh breeze and rainy mist filled her lungs. Slanting beams of sunlight lit the room until it glowed like an angel's halo.
She would know a thing or two—about angels that is.
Since her father had claimed they had descended from one themselves. Just before he'd disappeared into thin air, leaving her with a long scroll of debts, her only inheritance his worn enigmatic journal. And like a shovel to horseshit, the blood debt on her head, the reason she had come running at midnight in a frosty storm to the new Earl who lived in a literal haunted Manor.
"Isn't my life just peachy?" Ravenna mocked sarcastically. "Yeah! Just fucking peachy."
"Who are you talking to?" A sudden voice called.
"What! Fucking hell! You don't spring up on a person like that." Ravenna nearly fell in her step, turning to spot the light-skinned busty girl who she vaguely remembered carrying her up on her shoulders like she was a sack of apples.
She frowned mildly.
Aya Naamah was unperturbed under her emerald stare and sat in such ladylike posture by a bamboo rocking chair close to the bed, on the opposite side. That was why Ravenna hadn't seen her in her awakening.
Ravenna watched the young woman who had nursed her out her cold with wary eyes. She was skinny, admittedly. But not skinny enough that a girl her age could toss her off her shoulder.
Unless. . .these was one of the types her daddy spoke about that made people call him crazy.
A Hellion.
The woman looked like it. And there was something about her eyes. It made Ravenna want to touch her hands over the peaky mounds on her chest, cup them, and see how full they really were, as compared to her own smaller breasts. It was a hypnotism. An aura.
Just how big were her boobs anyway?
It looked pretty tight over her blue kimono.
"Hi! I'm Aya. Aya Naamah, Lord BlüdThïrste's slave."
Ravenna squinted at the lush babe who now stood in front of her. "His slave?"
"Yes." Aya paid no mind to her scoff. "Want some more bone broth? Lord Master insists you are well and good before you enter his presence. Though I mixed in splices of mandrake root and herb elixirs into your broth, I'd like to know if you'll still be needing rest. Will you?"
"Eh, no. I don't think so. But thank you...for everything." Ravenna replied.
She was dazzled when her nurse smiled. She had a beautiful smile. The healing elixirs must be why she felt so dandy all of a sudden after a whole night of shivering. But she was eager to meet this 'Lord Master', whom everyone around here seemed to worship.
"Where is er...the Earl?" Ravenna couldn't bring herself to call him Lord Master yet.
"His Grace is in his Study. If you'll come with me, this way." Aya replied, moving for the bedroom's door. Outside, Ravenna was confronted with the taller Tomboy who she was certain didn't like her. Her blue eyes grew colder when Aya added, "This is Corazón. She will take you on from here."
"A–Aren't you coming?" Ravenna found herself asking.
Aya shook her head. And Cora said stiffly,
"Come on, runt!"
"Hey! It's Ravenna!" She called after the taller woman who was already walking down the wide hallway. "Bitch," she muttered under her breath.
Cora did pause, her elfish hearing ability catching on Ravenna's subtle comment. She said nothing, but the ghost of her smile sent warm feelings down Ravenna's spine. The Tomboy had a model figure, and her voice was light as the wind. She was a girl after all.
What was it with this place and its sexy, scary, mysterious people? Ravenna wondered.
In a minute, they soon came by a looming brown door which was on a higher storey of the Mansion. Cora lifted up her right hand, just about to knock when a hard voice called from inside.
"Come in, Corazón."
Ravenna would've thought the personality within was a dragon from the graty, deep bass she heard. But then, Cora pushed in, offering her the open door. Ravenna first caught the smell of juniper, a fragrance earthly and wild. And then, the musty smell of old tomes. It reminded her of her lonely trips to the Eldorian Library.
Then she looked up, and her jaw dropped straight to the floors.
In front of her stood a man. Only he didn't look mortal.
His size was astonishing.
He stood by a fourteen feet aisle, picking a book. And he was half the height. His clothes were cut from spider's silk. Black. Crimson. Gold.
He exuded finesse and allure. Whenever his fingers moved over pages, Ravenna felt her stomach drop even lower. His side burns had a trim cut. And his hair...
She lifted up green eyes warm in tears when Rafel leaned close from his plush seat to her.
"I don't think you get this, Little Raven. But you are not going anywhere. Not until you tell me what I have on my hands by allowing you, a branded soul, into my home."
He pulled from his front pocket a pristine handkerchief. The fiesty glaze dulled in Ravenna's green eyes as she collected it, dabbing lightly at the corners of her eyes.
The slap did hurt. But what was more interesting was that she actually loved it. The sting across her cheek left her panting breathlessly. Rose bloomed on her neck. But nodding respectfully, she sat back from her sprawl and began to explain it all.
"My father was Thebault de Vries, an expert cartographer and potionmaker who had worked for the Queen. Until about twelve years ago when my mother died, and he claimed she was killed by a Unicorn. He was considered mad since everyone knows unicorns don't kill. They signify peace and pure magic, and whatnot.
Anyway, he was fired off the Queen's Court. And became a freelancer. We lost our standing with high society. Our Brownstone in the city. Our wealth dwindled. And we had to move to one of the coastal villages.
My father kept making his potions to which he made meagre earnings. I helped too. But it all went to shit when the drinking started. Then the gambling. I hid away all my savings, but it didn't matter. Our house was the size of a barn, a little cottage by the sea.
He found the pig's purse everytime, committing what little I'd saved up to profitless adventures in the hope of regaining his title.
But how can a kingdom trust a potionmaster who claims unicorns drink blood and eat hearts?
He never stopped trying to prove it.
And then one day, I came home to find him smiling wide with a glaze in his eyes, saying he'd found a way. Apparently, his way was a demon who had promised him knowledge beyond the mortal mind, a triple dose of his lost fame and wealth, and wordly pleasures like nothing seen on earth.
Good ole daddy never asked the price.
That evening he went out...and he never came back.
Now I just assumed it was one of his usual drinking bouts and he was slumped out in piss in a pub by the ports. But no. He wasn't.
It's been three years now."
Ravenna fell silent. And Rafel leaned back in his seat. The girl had being through a lot. Twelve years plus an additional three, taken away from seventeen was two. She had lost her mother at two years old. Her sod of a father wasn't in the picture.
And when he was, he was foggy-headed.
He understood now her fiery demeanor. She'd had to grow up fast.
Her father had made a sour deal. But more importantly, who was this demon?
Rafel looked to her tiny form. "Did you get the name of this demon?"
"Yes, Sir." Ravenna replied. "It was something grand I think... Mephistopheles."
Shit! Rafel shifted in his seat. The de Vries legacy was fucked.
The de Vries' were notable in Hel for making solid deals with important Hell Princes. But never with the likes of Mephistopheles. He was a cunning, manipulative bastard, and could persuade the legs off a cow. That was his entire MO. Meph could be best described as the god of deception.
Unfortunately, he was S-rank. He had Divine Runes for [Corruption] and [Temptation].
That came in handy in battle when he could transform into a thousand different foes, equally powerful and real. A one-man army.
Mephistopheles was a shit you'd avoid stepping in. He'd rip you off, and then rip you up!
"So since your father's disappeared," said Rafel. "Mephistopheles came to collect from you."
Ravenna nodded somberly.
"But how did you know to come to me?"
"My father's journal. He did write, 'When the Jester appears, seek out the Apollyon'. You, Sir, fit the description to a T."
"I see." Rafel brought a hand up to his jaw to think.
One thing he wasn't going to do was send Ravenna out there to her death. He didn't yet know why, but he loved looking into her sparky green eyes. Mephistopheles was a great adversary. But should Rafel take him out, nothing would stand between him and the [Supernatural] Rank.
He convinced himself that he had to level up in the eventual battle against Meph, just to ascend Hell rank—certainly not to protect the lovely Little Raven.
He managed to convince himself thus.
"The Little Raven stays," Rafel said to Cora.
"I don't like the runt, Your Grace." Corazón offered back.
"Then keep an eye on her. Smack her around if she gives you lip. It seems like she likes it anyway. Get Aya to fetch her a new wardrobe of her desire, and anything else she needs. She is not to step foot beyond the warded grounds. Treat her like family.
The de Vries are good friends of Hell." Rafel instructed with calm precision.
Corazón bowed to him. "Your Grace."
Then she turned, pulling up Ravenna by her thin arm and dragging her out the Study. "Let's get some flesh on you, runt."
"We are just about the same age, you know that right." Rafel heard Ravenna chirp back to Cora who didn't act like she heard, just before the door shut with a click behind them.
At their exit, Rafel turned his gaze down to the book of Eldorian History he had picked out for the evening. But flipping the brown pages, all he could see was a particular pair of hot green eyes.
No woman had ever interfered with his thoughts. Not even Lilith.