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nightmaretist · 1 year ago

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TIMING: The night of 3 to 4 August PARTIES: Parker @wonder-in-wings & Inge @nightmaretist LOCATION: The bunker SUMMARY: Inge and Parker meet at his bunker to close their deal. CONTENT WARNINGS: One mention of child death, self harm tw, medical blood tw (of the mare variety, nothing graphic)

Day 3.

The wound on his face was healing nicely, much to his relief. It didn’t get infected, not this time as Parker had some leftover antibiotics from the last fight he’d gotten into. It was mending at an expedient rate, his genes contributing to the accelerated process. He’d always been a quick healer, even before he was told of his legacy as a Wright Warden, the scrapes he’d accumulated fixing themselves at twice the rate of his brother. And notably, whenever he got injured, he never cried. In fact, until he’d brought home that first pair of fae wings, his parents seemed convinced that he either didn’t know how or possibly didn’t even possess adequate tear ducts. He didn’t cry from the pain until the night he was stitching up his face.

That was the downside.

In the three days that followed that night, Parker was plagued with unfamiliar thoughts and outbursts of emotion that were seemingly uncontrolled. They struck like lightning on an otherwise calm plain, though with the threat of storms looming overhead. He had gotten sent home from the museum the previous day, again, for a very uncharacteristic outburst in which he insulted a child’s mother for letting the brat smear his chocolate-covered fingers on his display of dermestid beetles with her not saying anything about it. He wasn’t raised that way, he thought those things all the time but to say them out loud, with little provocation and with the measure of anger he’d used to snap at her, was embarrassing and… almost overwhelming.

They attributed the outburst to his injury, the injury that he lost the argument of regardless of whether or not he displayed the grisly, bruised battle scar. ‘You’re under a lot of stress’. ‘You look exhausted, go home and get some rest. We’ll take care of it’. Fake words that didn’t represent the Warden, who they should’ve known was always an embodiment of upright postures, calm explanations and professionalism.

Nevertheless, Parker figured that maybe, just maybe, his nerves were shot from the ordeal involving the shifter and the subsequent alley fight with the three degenerates. A lot happened in not a lot of time and even the smoothest of surfaces were prone to cracking sometimes. He didn’t get a lot of sleep, though he wasn’t plagued with nightmares the way someone else in his situation might’ve been. That didn’t stop him from waking up in tears, though, immediately wondering why and unable to find an answer.

Tonight, determined to attempt to recover from his temporary mental instability and hoping that someone he was more familiar with could inadvertently help with her general presence, Parker had indeed invited Ingeborg to a coordinate relatively close to his Workshop. It was after dark, as it always had been when even he went and worked there; he rarely visited it during the day and he never took subjects to and from it under anything but the cover of night, which was fine because she seemed to prefer it. Tonight he waited for her, standing near a large-trunked tree, actively keeping himself from reaching up to mess with the wound on his face.

All the cautionary tales told her not to meet a peculiar man in the woods as night had fallen, but Ingeborg had long moved past the need to listen to tales of such a nature. And though Parker Wright wasn’t just any human – no, he actually was the worst kind – she still felt she had the upper hand. That in a sense, she might be the cautionary tale. The branches hitting your window, the monster under your bed, the tickle down your spine as you tried to sleep. Sanne had made her into the embodiment of a nightmare and through her (and later, perhaps more importantly, through herself) she had become a creature who instilled fear, who didn’t feel it.

She came, alone. She did not come unarmed, however, but the blade she carried was small and easily concealed. Inge had almost considered taking her gun from deep in her closet, but refrained. Parker had proven so far to be a man of his word, a man of a strict moral code — even if that one was inherently immoral. He didn’t like to kill or harm those he wanted parts of (more than necessary) and offering someone some blood? Well, it required just one incision. No need for him to do more damage than that, was there? (Was there?)

Besides, she had her ability to slip into the astral on her side. That was where she was now, observing the other near the coordinates where they were set to meet. The injury looked gnarly and she tried to remember if she knew anything about supernatural felines or if the warden had just gotten unlucky, somehow. If he was asleep, she’d retrace that wound over and over with different sets of claws, but alas — he was awake, and she didn’t quite feel like messing with his dreams yet, lest he figure out she wasn’t, in fact, a demon.

Inge materialized further from him, approaching him with those red-eyes. She wasn’t sure what perks hunters had been endowed with, but if his vision was the same as a regular mortal she’d have that to hold over his head too. Night vision served her well. This was when she felt most comfortable, when the earth was shrouded in dark — even if she liked her daylight hours and playing pretend. Nothing better than having her abilities work on full strength. “Good evening, Parker.” Eyes passed over his face, as if she was looking at it for the first time.

She grimaced. “I’m sorry to see your hurt.” A white lie. “I hope the pain is not too bad. Face wounds heal fast, though, hm?” There was a scar on her jaw, which had smoothed over as the years passed — funny, how she could still form scar tissue, but not grow wrinkles. She looked behind him. “Is it a long walk?”

—

He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end before he could see her, which was understandable - he had learned in passing that Wardens weren’t gifted with senses that let them see in the dark. ‘Any asshole can be a Ranger or a Slayer,’ his father’s voice echoed in Parker’s head from the memory. ‘Dipshits that kill dead things and beasts. Ain’t got two brain cells to rub together, only good for gettin’ bit.’ And yet, as he had no knowledge of them, Parker managed to find the time between their last meeting and now to do a little bit of research on demons, namely what seemed to expel them and how they could be injured. A contingency plan in case she didn’t like what she saw, not that she’d given him any implication that she would turn violent apropos of nothing so far.

The results were largely inconclusive, as Parker wasn’t a man of faith anymore and he was running short on time. He was also immensely frustrated that most of his searching online took him to a wikipedia article of some godforsaken show where apparently the main characters were demon hunters or something stupid. So, he had in his possession his familiar utility belt that he almost always wore when he was out in public that held a few special items this time as well as his thigh holster that sheathed his longer, more reliable iron dagger that he saved for actual fights. The Warden had also since acquired an iron cross he placed on a leather strap that he now wore around his neck, visible on top of his solid gray shirt. However, as he was preparing for this evening, he realized with horror that he couldn’t find his spiked iron knuckles, to enough of his dismay that he had punched a hole in his wall when his fervent searches around the house had been in vain.

He breathed deeply, trying to keep himself from becoming frustrated at the reminder that he had left something so valuable, so treasured behind as Inge approached him. Parker turned his head to regard her, his hands on his hips loosely as her red-eyed gaze came and went but his was lingering, as it tended to be. One thing hadn’t changed, and that was his proclivity to stare. “Ingeborg.” He replied in turn. The grimace was real but the words she said weren't, he could tell and while even something as completely mundane and innocuous as that seemed to be enough to want to rile him up, he didn’t react and he took his eyes off her to look in a different direction.

“The pain will be here until it’s done healing.” He replied, motioning for her to follow him with his head as Parker started trudging in the direction of the workshop. “There’s little point in acknowledging its existence.” He didn’t have a flashlight but he didn’t need to; he wasn’t equipped to see in the dark but he’d taken this path many times - he was intimately familiar with this square mile of the Pines, which made it easier for him to work.

She just needed to follow him. He wasn’t in the business of purposefully stranding people in attempts to kill them. He couldn’t believe how many times he had to tell himself and other people that he wasn’t a serial killer.

—

It would be shortsighted to call mares mere creatures of night. There was no sleep for those that shared her nature: there was only the waking state and the sleep of others. Yes, it was during the night that Ingeborg thrived most of all, when her astral powers were strongest and she could feed most — but she thought of herself as more than just that. Even if she felt at her best here, in the dark that wasn’t dark to her but which left most mortals blinded. Where a snapping branch or rustle of wind or wing might make someone look over their shoulder nervously.

It was a lucky thing, that Parker had wanted to meet in the shroud of darkness. She would have insisted on it otherwise, but that might have required explanation. Inge didn’t feel any push towards possibly making a hunter suspect that she was weaker when the sun was high — such facts were best omitted from a warden who didn’t even know what she truly was. (She had to wonder if perhaps he’d found her out by now, whether this was a ploy to get her in that workspace of his where he could cover keyholes and toss around salt and trap her. Risk, however, was a fundamental part of life.)

Eyes moved over his toolbelt, noting the other’s preparedness. The way he looked like the hunter she’d known him to be, yet more ready to strike — as if he was ready to go on a hunt. Brandishing a cross like he was a slayer, a knife strapped to his thigh. She looked back at his face, wondered if perhaps she should be more worried than she actually was. If the blade she’d brought herself (foldable, tucked in her pocket — but sharp and pointy and not entirely innocent) was to be enough, should any of this come to a head. But she had no intention to make any of this go sour, as she would prefer to remain semi-friendly with one hunter in town, and hoped the other felt the same.

She raised her eyebrows and then dropped them, a non-verbal way of saying okaayyyyyy whatever you say. Suffering was an art if done right. Inge liked to think she had mastered it. All her best work had been made in response to wounds. Vera’s death. Sanne’s murder. The confrontation with Elena Cortez. That heartbreak, in the 2010s, which hardly deserved mentioning. Inge was good at pain. She doled it out in the hope others would be good at it too. “Fair enough,” she said, however. Duplicity was too easy. “At least acknowledge it when taking care of the wound, though? Infections are never fun.”

She started following him, eyes leading her way as much as his determined step did. He was silent and she tried to be, too, even if comfortable silences weren’t in her repertoire. Inge soon caught up, walking next to him instead. Eyes glanced up, but she bit her tongue. The things she wanted to ask seemed inappropriate. Like do you carry or drag your victims through these woods or how does failure feels when it comes with injury, it feels bad, doesn’t it, I always find it feels bad. “It is beautiful here at night.”

—

“Hunters heal quickly. An infection won’t happen again.” Parker replied with a hint of bitterness in his tone as he walked, noting her catching up to him and walking alongside him rather than following behind. That was fine by him; he didn’t like not seeing where she was, anyway, especially as they drew closer to the Workshop. Again, as usual, nothing anyone said would’ve gotten through to him but the reminder of how careless and unfortunate he’d been the last time he got into a fight with a specimen riled something up in the back of his head and he found himself experiencing mild embarrassment.

Parker was internally thankful when she didn’t ask any further questions though he found himself wondering if there was something she was biting her tongue on. Regardless, she didn’t ask anything, instead opting for a glimpse of small talk as they walked side-by-side. “It is.” He agreed, glancing up and around as though it weren’t far enough into the evening to coat everything in shadows. “It’s quiet, it’s often still. Like an image.”

Simply walking through the woods was calming for him, he was learning and… somehow, Ingeborg’s presence helped too. Perhaps it was because Parker had already allowed her to cross the veil protecting his intimate passions - she was the first person, succubus or not, in the past year to have seen his true collection. And she’d be the first person ever aside from himself to consciously walk in and out of the bunker. The thought was still nerve-wracking and his brain fired some of the neurons that told him that he needed to be afraid but as he placed a hand on his belt subconsciously in a self-soothing gesture, he remembered that he was in control, here. Even through the unaccustomed anxiety, the uncertainty, the little things that his brain turned into massive problems…

He was in control. He had to be.

The Warden came to a slow and careful stop as a nonverbal indicator that she was also to stop. Before them was what appeared to be a mound of earth, covered in dense vegetation. Sooner than that though was a waist-high, thick barbed-wire fence, pitch black iron even in the middle of the night and giving it an unnatural, almost demonic quality. Parker placed a hand on the wire, focusing on how it felt on his hand, his brain sending signals down into the blood that circulated through his fingers, palm and wrist and all of the iron in it was pushed as far as it could go to the surface under his skin. It was a sentient creature curling and slithering in a glass container, pressing itself against the barrier to be as close as possible to the barbed iron fence.

He inhaled deeply, starting to walk along the length of the fence as it slowly circled around the mound. “I read that demons and iron are incompatible.” Parker mentioned as he walked, feeling his blood almost hum as it resonated with the wire, his fingers circumventing the large barbs that he remembered had cleaved flesh from bone before. “But iron is one of a Warden’s greatest assets.” He glanced over at her as he walked until he stopped at a small opening in the fence.

“Much like the night. It can be unassuming, but beautiful.”

The Warden faced a rectangular opening in the mound, an indention that was a few feet in depth where an archaic-looking door hid behind a curtain of vines and other greenery. “Are you ready?” He asked.

—

“It’s your face,” she said, swallowing any other comments. Let the wound get infected, for all she cared. Inge wasn’t here to play nurse or pretend to know much about mortal wounds, anyway. The accelerated healing though, that was a point of annoyance. She, even if she didn’t bleed normal blood any more, still took significant time to heal. Never mind that the bruises on her body glittered prettily — they still took a long time to become smooth skin again. “You know best.”

How strange it was, to walk side-by-side with a hunter. His face marred by the claws of some supernatural being, her own skin covered in plenty of scars put there by his ilk. The laceration on her upper arm had healed nicely, sure, but there was still a line in her skin that would take decades to become fully invisible. Something about this was inherently wrong — they should be facing each other, weapons drawn. Hunter and hunted, that would be the rules of nature: but Inge had long ceased to care about conventions. Maybe she was just glad not to be hunted.

She hummed in thought. “Not too quiet, I hope? There must be nocturnal creatures.” She hoped to hear an owl hoot to support her statement, but it remained quiet. Her eyes scanned their surroundings, though, trying to see the rustling movements of an animal. Perhaps it was for the best that there seemed none: she didn’t feel like dealing with any creatures upset with her sheer existence. “An image. It’s a worthy subject for art.” Darkness hid so much, the same way art was capable of doing. Inge had toyed with it for a while, perhaps a decade or so ago. Suggestive art, playing on people’s skill of imagination. What do you see in the dark?

Some people saw their largest fears and some saw nothing at all — which at the end of the day, Inge thought the scariest thing. Emptiness, an endless stretch of nothing. There always had to be something else. Another challenge, another horror, another pleasure. Immortality was a delight, but it was a threat too: it could all become too monotonous. She had seen it in the eyes of those centuries older than her. So maybe that was why she walked side-by-side with this hunter, rather than find a way to work against him. It was a change in the rhythm and cycle.

And, of course, a chance to get some cold, hard cash. Being a professor wasn’t very lucrative.

When he pointed out one of her supposed weaknesses, Inge felt a muscle within her tense. So he had done his homework, tried to figure out what could be classified as a demon’s weakness. Of course, iron had no particular effect on her, as she wasn’t a succubus but rather a mare — but still, there was the principle of it. “So you’ve been reading up on me?,” she said, attempting to sound as casual as she could. In all truth, she didn’t know if demons were sensitive to iron at all (if they even existed outside of religious canons), and even if she’d said she had no sensitivity to the stuff before it seemed wiser to play along. “I’ll be careful with what I touch. Which, I suppose, goes without saying.” She thought, for a moment. “Things with hidden qualities can often be that. Beautiful.”

Eyes took in what was in front of the unlikely pair, the well-hidden door and the way it seemed to fit perfectly with this hunter. A nightmarish predator. A horror-director would have a field day, here, and with the things Inge did with people’s dreams she might as well be one. Excitement spread through her. As did a multitude of other, less pleasurable things. She looked at Parker, nodded. “Certainly.”

—

She was making snipes at him. Of course he knew best. The comment didn’t go by Parker unnoticed but he elected to ignore it, simply popping his neck in the motion that had already become a habit synonymous with biting his tongue. Instead, they walked and it seemed that his warning to her, potentially as empty as it was, didn’t fall on deaf ears as she expressed her care in touching things. That was preferable - he didn’t want to think about what sort of rage he’d desperately try not to fly into if she messed with his things. These weren’t the displays at the museum; this was his heart, the small, stunted thing that kept him alive but served no other practical purpose to him on the best of days.

And yet, like his heart, he held these things close to him. They were the things that pumped life through the rest of his body, his soul if he had one. To enter this obscured bunker through an exclusive invitation and not by force was effectively working around his ribs to his core. …He needed to stop being sentimental. Pushing the thoughts out of Parker’s head couldn’t keep a knot of fear from twisting around inside him though at some perception of either rejection, mockery or worse, aggression.

He didn’t need to wonder what he would’ve done if Ingeborg betrayed the trust of his intimacy, what he would’ve done if it turned out she was secretly someone working for an organization that would see him ruined or dead. Demon or not, she wouldn’t be spared from his wrath and at this juncture, Parker couldn’t have been sure how much of that reaction would’ve been based on the unreasonable mood swings and how much of it was the latent anger that seemed to possess all hunters at some point, the double-edged sword that was sometimes a superpower, sometimes a disease.

The Warden carefully stepped around the hole in the fence and pointed to it to show her where it was - the fence itself was layered, creating an optical illusion that it wasn’t open at all. She said she was ready so he deliberated no longer. Approaching the door, Parker used two hands to pull it open with what seemed like a measure of effort, using his legs as an anchor as he heaved the heavy-looking metal from its frame. To anyone but his surprise though, the door was almost completely silent, a curiosity that certainly didn’t match either its size, age or the effort Parker put into it. Once it was open, a pitch-black mouth not dissimilar to the one that waited for them at his house gaped open. Unlike his house, though, this one wasn’t wood, instead hewn stone that was stained several times over with the annals of time, cracked, chipped away with age.

“Keep your hand on the wall,” Parker instructed as he stepped inside, having her enter behind him. He pulled the door shut again, wincing to himself as the gash that was still stitched up stretched across his face felt the sting of salt from sweat. As the door shut, they were enrobed in pitch black silence save for the distant, rhythmic dripping of something. “And don’t remove it until we get to a door.” Part of him wondered if he should help her find it but ultimately he decided against it, instead placing his own fingers on the rough stone and, still swallowed by darkness, he walked forward.

He knew better, was familiar with the unsteady terrain and held the knowledge that if she didn’t follow his instruction and keep physical contact with the wall, she’d become suspended in place; walking forward on a conveyor belt indefinitely until she turned and left. The sensation was simultaneously curious and immensely frustrating but most importantly, it kept the true nature of that bunker well-hidden from the uninitiated, the confused, the unwilling. This was information that Parker wasn’t planning on telling anyone ever; he’d figured it out on his own and assumed it was some fae magic but he wasn’t a stranger to finding the benefit in things that’d existed long before him and probably would long after he departed. It was why he collected things, after all.

‘You’re spending so much time in your head,’ his mother said. ‘Are you doing okay?’ He didn’t answer, he never did. Instead, he instinctively stopped in the zero-light hallway just before another metal door. “Are you there?” Parker asked, his tone still even and yet there was something there, something that indicated… a twinge of anxiety. Was it because he thought she wouldn’t answer or was it because he thought she would?

—

Eyes widened as the hunter seemingly stepped through the fence, bending rules of physics. The fact that these rules could be bent wasn’t what made Inge look with wide eyes – she knew as much by now – but it was sooner her admiration, and perhaps with a twist, also her bitterness. She forced her eyebrows down, not wanting to raise them in annoyance at the concept of a hunter who seemed to use some kind of magic to assist him in hiding his lair. Instead, she wished to just be appreciative as she moved after him. “Curious.”

It wasn’t like she couldn’t somewhat understand the intimacy of this. Inge felt it too, sometimes, when people witnessed her art. Some of her pieces were like parts of her soul, the results of loss and rage turned into something physical and real. Like bits of her heart, put on display for the world to see — especially when she had started as an artist, she had felt a level of fear when it came time for people to step into an exhibition room and witness her creations. With an audience, something changed shape, transformed into something larger than what it had been before. Something different. In showing her his workspace, he was inviting her judgment, her curious eyes, her treacherous soul.

She had, for now, no intention to betray this hunter — to make an enemy out of this man would be unwise. But intentions so hardly mattered in the long run to Inge. What she intended now could change tomorrow. Loyalty was a thing for one person alone, and that was herself — it was why she still stood here, despite the scars on her body. Why, perhaps, the other also still stood here: hurt, again, but alive as well.

She blinked her red eyes at the opened doors, once again met with a dark hole. A wise instinct in her told her perhaps it was better to move into the astral, to at least try and scope out this place before this hunter led her down it – but another instinct (wise in its own right) told her to keep her abilities of teleportation to herself. Of course, if she were truly wise, she would not be here in the first place. “Did you build this place? Or did you find it?” The question was posed with genuine curiosity, Inge glancing at the warden before looking back into the darkness. Even with her vision, it revealed nothing. Darkness was inspiring, leaving her imagination to run rampant. It was hard to resist the shiver that ran down her spine. Exciting.

She entered, the door pulled shut. She tried to sense if her connection to the astral plane was still there, a flex of the fingers — and it was. Still, it seemed best not to pop out, to extend some kind of trust that this was a business exchange. Besides, Parker was offering instructions, and though they were odd, Inge had seen the hole in the fence and had a feeling that this was not just any place. The hunter was so matter-of-fact, that it seemed best to take anything he said literally, and so she watched him place his fingers against the wall, dark vision making him stand out clearly against all else. Inge followed suit. “Got it.”

And so she walked, shoes splashing in what she hoped was water, her lips pressed together in a silent line. This place seemed … compressed, somehow. Like something was folding in on itself, like this wasn’t really the earthly plane but rather someone’s subconscious, where time and space could be folded. Inge found it thrilling. She found it inspiring. She wanted to know what was at the end of this, what would happen if she were to let go — but if one thing was larger than her curiosity, it was her survival instinct.

His question broke through the silent and she let out a sound, then said: “Yes. Where would I go?” Then, she breathed in, something she hadn’t done in a short while as there had been no need for such performance for a moment, her awe having made her silent in more ways than one. “Is that cinnamon I smell?”

—

She answered his question and the answer both relieved Parker and sent an uncomfortable wave of some unidentified negative emotion through his body. Which answer was he hoping for? “I don’t know.” He answered honestly, rather quietly; he wasn’t sure how wide the scope of demonic powers or abilities Inge possessed - for all he knew, she could’ve been a shadowwalker or something. He never even thought to consider that she could see clearly in the dark; after all, demons were creatures made in inhuman depths of pitch black desire, right? Or hubris?

The new thought that he was blind in the darkened tunnel, even though he was keenly aware of where he was and how many paces it took when one’s hand was against the worn stone wall while she could see him accelerated his heartbeat as Parker placed a hand on the metal door. It was ridiculous. He was ridiculous. If she wanted to attack him, she would’ve already, right? He also hadn’t interacted with her very many times but part of him hoped that he had been more than agreeable enough to her inquiries and curiosities to warrant her treating him with the same respect… that first instance in the museum notwithstanding.

He pushed the door open both literally and metaphorically, also pushing past the hestance that kept the two in that sightless tunnel for longer than necessary. He felt the sting of perspiration in his stitched, stapled wound as he knew he was getting worked up over potentially nothing. Why was this so difficult for him? “I found it.” Parker opted to reply as the door swung open rather easily, especially compared to the one that separated what was inside from the rest of the unknowing world and bathed the two in unexpected light.

“As far as the smell is concerned… I just like it.” There wasn’t much explanation there. Sure, Parker could’ve added onto it; it was a satisfying, sharp scent that he could easily recognize even with his human senses and that it nicely masked other, less savory scents that permeated the location on occasion - blood, stagnant water, sweat. Necrotic flesh. The chemicals he used in his processes. But he didn’t; the smell was there to stay and he wasn’t going to apologize if she didn’t like it.

The hall that the door opened to reveal was considerably more well-kept, though still far from professional. It was lit by fluorescent lights, their hum filling the otherwise-still air and they faced down on three doorways - one on the left, one a little further on the right and of course, the one at the far end. Parker’s gaze, after adjusting to the light on his blue eyes that stung with a lack of sleep even in the couple of days since the fight, drifted between the three doors. “One room is a study.” He explained. “It looks similarly to the basement.” He nodded towards the closer door on the left.

Parker carefully stepped forward and approached the door on the right, holding his hand on the old latch, hesitating as another wave of unwelcome anxiety momentarily seized him. “...This room isn’t important.” He blinked, prying his hand off the doorknob and taking a deep breath. Another. A third. “Give me a moment.” He exhaled, finding it hard to catch his breath though, as usual, he couldn’t understand why.

She came to see the bunker, his workshop. He had invited her to slake her curiosity. And yet, as Parker felt himself subtly gasping for air, part of him wanted to tell her to leave; leave the area, leave to gossip about this place, leave him to whatever he was in the grips of at that moment as he cast his gaze to the concrete floor.

—

He didn’t know. How very peculiar, but then things were peculiar — in this town, in this world, in this plane. Ingeborg wasn’t one to question it, nor did she want to challenge the hunter at present, while they were on his turf. Best to ask innocuous questions and let him answer him, lest she frustrate him to a point where he didn’t think helping her was a viable option any more. “I see.” Besides, it had to make sense for the answer to lie somewhere in between: bunkers tended to be old structures, didn’t they? And as far as Inge knew, they didn’t come with an in-built warden workshop.

Though she wouldn’t hold it against their kind.

The door swung open, replacing the comfortable darkness which had gained her that advantage with fluorescent, overhead light. Inge’s eyes lost their red, glowing quality and she blinked at the change of it. The light was far from bright enough to stun her, but it did momentarily make her feel out of balance, which she contributed to the contrast with the lack of light from before. She hoped he didn’t take note of it, the way she rubbed her eyesockets to get rid of the dancing stars. A hunter who didn’t know of a mare’s weaknesses was the best kind of hunter.

“The smell is pleasant. I was just surprised by it,” she said, running the same hand through her hair and looking around the bright hallway. Three doors. There was something eerie about that too, wasn’t there? Who knew what horrors might lie behind them, what choices the hunter left for the people he brought here. Behind one of these doors is a hungry bear, but behind the other is a pile of candy! Choose carefully!

She followed him, wanting him to open each and every door with his own hands, even if her curiosity almost got the better of her. She wanted to rip them all open, or flit between rooms in the astral — to see what this hunter hid in the crevices of Wicked’s Rest, where he brought fae to be separated from their wings. Her eyes bore into the door on the left, willing it to open with Parker’s explanation. A study. Without it revealing its contents, she imagined him cradling a pair of newly-acquired wings, dripping with blood still, while leisuring on an expensive, leather chaise-longue. Or no, a rocking chair, moving back and forth while humming some old tune. The wings like a babe. If he wasn’t going to show her, she’d fill in the blanks. “And what is it you study there?”

Inge let go of her fantasies, following her gaze to the door he approached. A latched door, rather than suited with a regular doorknob — one Parker held onto as if it was a move of protection. She wanted him to lift the latch and show what was beyond this non-important room, the one that could only be opened from the outside. She wasn’t sure what to expect from this place, from a workspace made for separating fae from their body parts.

A surgical room? That would seem appropriate, though it could also look like more of a torture dungeon. And then there was this latched room, which left plenty for her imagination to run with — but the hunter was faltering.

His breathing was constrained, as if he’d just run up a hill. Was it something in the air here? Inge wouldn’t know, her body no longer dependent on oxygen. Or was this something else, something akin to a panic attack? It was a thought out of this world, a concept that should not be applicable to something like a hunter — especially not one like Parker Wright. A man who could be terrifying enough to be a boogeyman, a story told to little fae kids to make them sleep unsoundly.

She took a step back, granting him some space. “Are you — okay, Parker? Can I do something for you?” There had to be breathing exercises out there, but she didn’t know any of them on account of her not needing to breathe. “We can take it easy. All in due time. Just – breathe easy, now.”

—

At first, the words Inge said went in Parker’s good ear then slammed against the other side of his head, contributing to the pendulum in his mind that seemed to reel at the thoughts that suddenly overwhelmed him. She wasn’t a Warden, she wasn’t a human, she wasn’t a fae, she was a demon. He barely knew anything about her other than what she’d woven into their conversations and he now nearly doubled over in front of the door that usually housed the specimens that he harvested from. Would she hate him? Should she hate him? What if she was so disgusted by what she saw that she turned on him right then and there? Would her demonic fury overwhelm her and he’d be thrust into the inevitability of death?

‘Breathe easy’. That was an idea that was simple enough to say and should’ve been just as simple to do and yet his mouth hung open as he swallowed lungfuls of air that seemed humid in the illuminated hallway. His vision started to swim and Inge’s question to help was met with an erratic shake of his head. “N-no.” Parker insisted with no certainty in his tone at first and he wasn’t sure which question he was answering. He didn’t even know what he was experiencing this intense emotion over. Was it embarrassment? Shame? Was he afraid and if he was, was it because he was closer than ever to showing someone who had no right to be there his most intimate aspects?

Part of Parker wanted to reach out, make contact with Inge to keep himself from falling off the edge he was precariously teetering from the past few days. And yet, one emotion he was acutely aware of all the time was pride. The Warden wouldn’t reach out to allow his fingers to graze her, to establish that the abyss wasn’t real. She’d laugh at him. Mock him. He never reached out because that’s not what Wright Wardens did, especially not him.

‘Stand up straight, boy. Y’ain’t dying, you’re just caught up in your head. Stand up straight.’

His father was right. He always was. Parker dared himself to close his eyes, taking a deep breath, willing the storm to settle down. His heartbeat that pulsed wildly in his head, giving him the impression that he was dying, started to steady. His breathing came deeper, more controlled. She wasn’t going to attack him and if she decided to insult his workspace, his craft… he’d deal with it then. He straightened up slowly from his doubled-over position and he still held his arms close to his stomach for a few moments as he felt his torso expanding and collapsing with steadied breaths. “I apologize.” He huffed out an exhale through a narrow opening in his lips. “For the… distraction.” He didn’t know if he was even capable of trying to explain what that was.

Before he had a chance to relapse into whatever the hell that was, Parker inhaled sharply through his nose, more of a sniff than anything else and he placed his hand on the latch once more, pushing the door open. “There’s no knob on the inside so don’t shut the door, please.” He said as the opening door revealed–

“This is where I keep the specimens.”

The room was small, a concrete step or two down from the doorway and the ground was made of the same concrete though it seemed to be polished and considerably smooth. There was a cheap-looking chair that sat in the far right corner next to a small, three-legged round table. The most instantly-noticeable part of the room, however, was the left side which appeared to be reminiscent of a cell from a county jail. The bars were very thick and didn’t seem to have a base at the top or the bottom, instead connected directly to the concrete floor and the low ceiling. There was a door hidden among the bars, not immediately obvious to the eye similarly to the fence and a narrow opening at the bottom where plates and trays could be deposited. In the cell was a twin-sized mattress with a pillow and a set of clean sheets on it, which contrasted the numerous stains on the floor under and next to it.

“The study is just named that.” Parker explained, finally addressing one of her previous questions as he stood aside to allow her entry to the room if she wanted it. He absently wiped one of his eyes as he moved a heavy stone wedge with a steel-toed boot to prop the door open and he himself stepped inside for a moment. It could’ve been jarring, how differently he was acting now compared to just a few minutes before and he smothered that thought before it threatened to set him back, an ouroboros that he couldn’t fall into. “It’s where I keep some of my books. It’s a relaxation room. …I figured it would be redundant but I can show it to you, as well.”

—

It was like the world had turned upside down. There was a panicking hunter in front of her. This was often the opposite, was it not? No matter how hard Inge might try to deny it, there had been countless times where a hunter had made her feel similarly to this. Not like she couldn’t breathe – as she didn’t need to breathe any longer – but as if the world was slipping away from underneath her. Panic thrumming through her nervous system, messing with her very biology and mind. But now she was the calm one, witnessing a hunter in a state she didn’t often see one.

But she saw panic. She knew terror. Not only was she a creator of it, she was a witness. Her sleepers woke up gasping for air, grasping the sheets, letting out a scream — and she’d watch from the astral as her work had real-life consequence. She didn’t do it often – something about it poisoned her work – but she did it from time to time. As a reminder of what it’s like to be human, mortal, and endlessly and always afraid.

So she watched. Voyeuristic, the way a mare was perhaps destined to be. At least she let him know she was watching, not hiding in the folds of the astral or a shadow. Her gaze danced, not sticking to him but still. Inge felt powerful in a way. Having the upper hand on a hunter was a rarity.

And eventually he regained himself. “You’re alright,” she said plainly, because it was. At the end of the day, he really was just a human, even if a sadistic and strange one. She had once breathed like this too. “It’s over. We needn’t think about it, if you’d rather.” It was a little embarrassing, wasn’t it?

Parker moved on, though, focus regained. She thought it curious, how fast he shifted between moods. It reminded her, in a way, of herself — but with her it was rather between mania, rage and melancholy that she swayed.

The room was ugly. Not because the interior design choices (if there were any) but because of its function. Inge moved into the room, not bothering to keep her eyes from widening. The specimens, he said, as he guided her into a prison. She searched for a line of salt, something that would keep even mares trapped behind those ugly bars. She didn’t bother to breathe any more, her senses keenly aware of the man behind her, the lack of touch between them — she wouldn’t find herself in a place like that, locked with a spare mattress and fresh sheets. Fresh sheets, what a horror: it might have been less scary if they were blood-stained or yellowing.

How many fae had slept there? How many had died there? Inge felt a swirl of disgust, of rage. She thought of Dis and their antlers, pressing her lips together in a fine line. Specimens. She thought of the hunter in Italy, who’d limited her movements and attempted to starve her. She looked at him over her shoulder, not afraid but perhaps worried, in a way. She had nothing for this hunter beside her blood, but he was still that. A hunter. With a jail cell in a bunker. Why had he panicked before showing this? Was it shame? Fear of judgment, of repercussion? Inge wasn’t going to wield any weapons, her cowardice and survival instinct stronger than whatever anger she felt. But still, didn’t they both seem aware that this was wrong?

Specimens, he’d said. What did he make of her?

She shook her head. “I can picture it, the study. Let’s move on, shall we?” She didn’t want to see where this man laid back and relaxed, where he flicked through books as his specimens laid on the clean mattress. She did wonder what kinds of books he read. Probably non-fiction. But maybe he liked those cheesy romantic novels.

A thrill ran up her spine as she tossed one last look over to the cell before moving back into the hallway. “It seems secure. That room. This entire place.” Inge had little else to say of it, but one question burned: “Do many of them leave?” Or did he let them die there, a long and painful death?

—

The Warden kept his keen eyes on her as she explored the holding area, himself silent except for the sound of his heavy footfalls against the concrete floor, examining her reactions, observing her body language as he opted to focus entirely on her. While Parker had since recovered fully from the pendulum swinging too far in one direction, he still felt a small pang of what he assumed was latent anxiety over this whole order prickling at his skin but it wasn’t nearly as unmanageable as it was minutes before. He wasn’t sure if he would ever fully know why whatever had coursed through his system had but she wasn’t dwelling on it, and he was internally grateful for that. She had other thoughts on her mind now and while she didn’t show him fear - he didn’t expect it from her anymore, even now - there was something on her face as she looked back at him.

Something new, something he had yet to see on her. And her expression seemed to settle a little more of the churning inside him.

Thankfully, she was willing to skip the study. Parker motioned for her to follow out of the room, making sure she was out all the way before he carefully pulled the door shut behind her where it clicked closed softly. That was often the most difficult room to think about though, again, he couldn’t be sure why. Perhaps it was simply the nerves of showing someone he wasn’t planning on using it against. Perhaps he really was worried about what she’d think, another tally on his ever-growing list of people who were monsters but thought that he was the worst.

“Yes.” He answered her question as he now approached the third and final door, the one that sat under a fluorescent light at the end of the short hall. “And the ones who don’t leave aren’t left to die slowly. I’m not a torturer.” The word slipped from his mouth with more bile than he intended but all things considered, he wasn’t particularly sorry. If anything, Parker was frustrated with the title, one of many that he didn’t get to choose. People were foolish, the fae sometimes more so. It was so easy for them to fall into extremes. As he said this with an exhale through his nose, the Warden opened that third door and didn’t wait for her to step inside first.

“This is my workshop.”

Crossing the doorway was like stepping into a different genre of life altogether. The room was bathed in blinding fluorescent lights, making everything in it as visible as possible and casting harsh shadows below the sparse furniture that lay within. The floor was tiled, sparkling light blue and slick with a clean shine. The walls were lined with countertops and cabinets that all seemed to be filled in some measure or another with bottles, tools, boxes, packets. One particularly large cabinet that sat in one of the far corners seemed to be full of exclusively bandages and towels. While all the countertops on the left side were clean and generally free of clutter save a tool here or a bottle of unidentified fluid there, the right side had all manner of things on its surfaces, including what appeared to be a dismantled crossbow with several bolts strewn about near it, some small, narrow-edged daggers with the blades removed from their hilts and, a little further down, a dark, mangled disc of metal.

The centerpiece of the room was a solitary operating table with a grate underneath it. It was long and wide, a slick chrome and a little lower than the average waist height. On it were some surgical instruments and another container of fluid but the thing that stood out was what appeared to be a segment of a tail. It was silvery blue in color, a little more than a foot in length and with dull aqua fronds on the tip. It was… a work in progress. The room smelled more strongly of cinnamon and was now accompanied by the scent of coffee as it juxtaposed the clinical way the tail was arranged.

“You may look but I ask that you touch nothing.” Parker paused for a moment, once again keeping his sharp blue eyes that were the same color as the tile on Ingeborg, studying her reaction, feeling a great deal more comfortable in this room than the holding cell though he could still feel an unexpressed emotion pulling at the pendulum in his head.

—

Inge wasn’t a person moved by morality. She existed for creation and consumption and not much else, filling in the blanks between those things with whim and spontaneity. Everything, at the end of the day, was done in the name of art or survival — and whatever lines she had to cross for that, she’d cross gladly. Like now, following a hunter the likes of which she’d never met before, into his workshop where he maimed fae. In the name of inspiration, the name of art.

If she had a muse, it was fear, disgust and misery. All the wretchedness in the world.

And though she found it no comfort as he said yes, as she took some issue with him refusing to call himself a torturer — it was what she required. Parker’s attitude combined with the spaces they moved from and to was what she came here for. Inspiration. At home, she’d get out her charcoal and paper and sketch, recreate the image of that mattress on the floor, the latch that locked the door, the look on Parker Wright’s face as he said his specimens didn’t die slowly.

A lot could be forgiven in the name of good art.

Still, she offered no reply. She found nothing fitting. What was she supposed to say, as a demon? Approve of his cruelty? Tell him that Satan would surely approve of his methods, or something cheesy like that? Inge liked some performance, but she wasn’t here to tap into her more dramatic sides. She was here as a visitor, as a witness, as a voyeur — and there was a part of her that wanted to look at all of this from the comfort of the astral, where no words were needed. To make a play out of this would be counterproductive, distract her from taking in the details she intended to remember. So she remained silent.

She stayed that way as they moved into the workshop, the pièce de résistance of this location. Eerily clean and brightly-lit, the room that Inge stepped into lacked any kind of inviting nature. Sterile was the first word she thought of to describe the place, which admittedly was a good term to use in regards to Parker himself. As if he himself was rubbed clean with alcohol, skin raw and red to remove all the dirtiness that they both knew had once been there. She blinked at the brightness of the room, feeling a certain level of lightheadedness wash over her that was tolerable, even if annoying.

Her feet carried her through the room, not even a single part of her wanting to ask if he could turn down the light. She ran a hand through her hair, pressing the palm of her hand against one of her temples momentarily before moving more. Weapons. Sterile bandages. Fluids she couldn’t identify. The operating table, in the middle of it all where Inge could imagine all types of fae lying, unconscious. Her imagination ran with it, imagining her own immobilized body there, somehow contained to such a place.

He wanted her blood and only that, didn’t he? Or would he be curious enough to take a scalpel to her insides? Inge wasn’t sure what they looked like, now that she was no longer human and alive. Her blood wasn’t blood, so who was to say her liver was still meaty, her heart still a tough muscle? Even she got curious when she thought about it, so why wouldn’t he? Her eyes flicked to him, wary. She felt the presence of the astral, nothing keeping her here. “Not to worry, I won’t touch a thing.”

Her worried imaginations were dissipated by what she saw on the operating table. Another trophy, a bit of what seemed to be a tail from a fish of sorts. Inge wasn’t well-versed when it came to water creatures, admittedly, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t intrigued. “What is this from?” Her gaze directed to Parker for a moment, before she took a closer look, stepping forward. She hadn’t seen a lot of fae in their true form, so she wasn’t sure if this was something fae-adjacent or rather something belonging to another supernatural creature. It was strange, though — such a small bit of what she assumed to have been a longer tail.

She wondered what he’d do with it. How he’d gotten it. She hoped that whoever he’d taken this from was still alive, in a rare moment of empathy.

She turned around. “Should we get to … the rest of our agreement?” Inge felt increasingly uncomfortable at the prospect of him touching her and thus grounding her here, cutting off her access to the astral. But a deal was a deal, and she had gained plenty of inspiration here. Besides, she wanted her money.

—

The Warden, arguably feeling as safe as he ever did in that singular, surgically-lit room, still kept his sharp blue eyes on Inge after everything was said and done. Parker had spent many hours in that room, his back slightly bent as he worked on a project but this was her first time seeing it. This wasn’t like the trophy room in his basement or even the small cell where he held his specimens as they recovered from whatever they wanted to call the liberation of their parts, where he wanted to gauge her reaction. He wasn’t seeking her approval here; this was non-negotiable, a testament that he was serious about what he did.

“I don’t know.” It was an honest response to her inquiry regarding the tail that lay on the table. “Not a fae, that much is certain.” And Parker was content to leave it at that as he went over to one of the many cabinets and pulled out a few different items, including a single-use gauze pad, a bottle of fluid, a small role of bandages and a couple of cotton balls. He motioned with his head for her to join him as he placed the items on one of the cleaned counters, starting to remove the bloodied bandage from his face and depositing it into a nearby waste bin.

He observed her, gently dabbing at the healing gash on his face with one of the cotton balls now dipped in what smelled like alcohol as she approached him regarding their agreement. Parker still didn’t think that five thousand dollars was necessary, even for a demon’s blood, but that was what she asked for and though it wasn’t a petty sum, he was also nothing if not incredibly financially responsible. That and that the rich, affluent and mentally disturbed bought his creations at decidedly higher prices than he sometimes considered.

Leaning against the counter with one of his hips, Parker used a dextrous hand to open one of the pouches on his belt, pulling out a small, intricately-decorated bottle. He held it aloft for her to see, almost as if wanting to see if she thought it a suitable vessel for her unique blood. “I assume a needle will be insufficient.” He explained as he carefully set the bottle down onto the counter, tossing the now-red cotton ball into the waste bin as well. “I’m proficient with human anatomy but as… proof that I’ve no intention of harming you, you can choose where you would bloodlet from.” He casually pulled one of the drawers below the counter they were standing near open, revealing a row of differently-sized silver scalpels. He gestured for her to take a look.

—

He didn’t know, which was curious. Of course, he was only a human, and as old as he looked — despite his teachings, he couldn’t know everything. Like what a mare was, for example. Inge still looked at the tail for a moment, before redirecting her gaze at the warden. She joined him where he stood, watching him bare himself in yet another way. She stared at the wound on his face, at the way he took care of it with a skill she recognized. Inge had become good at basic first aid herself, out of need more than want.

“Did it belong to whoever did that?” Addressing his injuries felt somewhat strange, as if Inge was finally pointing out the obvious, the weakness that he carried. Though there was something to be said about just exposing your injuries without little hesitation: that wasn’t weakness per se. No, he just dabbed his wounds with alcohol without flinching, putting it proudly on display that something had harmed him but not killed him. Inge did the same with her own scars.

The bottle was dainty, almost pretty. Not just something that served its function, but something decorated. Inge thought that fitting indeed, even if the idea of her blood swirling in it was a strange one still. But she’d made it this far, had gained plenty of inspiration and there was still the five thousand dollars that waited for her — so she wouldn’t back down now. Besides, she knew better than to go back on deals, with humans and fae alike. She wasn’t a woman of her word, per se, but she also didn’t enjoy causing trouble with people who could pose a real issue.

“I don’t imagine it would work, no,” she said, thinking of the stagnant way her blood sat in her body. It moved with her movements, fell out when her skin was lacerated and gravity came into play, but it just sat within her, most of the time. Like the stuffing of a plush toy. “I appreciate that,” Inge said, watching him open the drawer of scalpels. She stretched out one hand for the bottle, used another to take one of the sharp looking scalpels. Part of her would prefer it if he did the deed, but there was still a trepidation to be touched and tied to this place. Now, she still had her dear astral plane accessible to her, should things turn awry. Him saying he didn’t intend to harm her could just as well be a lie, after all.

Once she held both objects, she considered herself. It was not in her nature to hurt herself, after all. Her hands were so dear to her, too — they were how she made her best work, the tools she used most of all. Inge ended up extending her left hand’s ring finger, slicing horizontally down her flesh and creating an incision about an inch long. “There we go.” Glitter drizzled slowly until she added more pressure, a look of concentration and perhaps even pain on her face as she bled in front of the hunter.

—

For the first time since before they entered the bunker, Inge had addressed the deep crevice of a gash on Parker’s face, asking without knowing the name if it was Teddy that gave it to him. He shook his head slowly, his body language not carrying any duplicity in it. He wasn’t flinching as the alcohol stung his skin; he had already unintentionally exposed far too many emotions in front of the demon previously and the way the pendulum in his mind was swinging, this was a matter of whatever pride he could keep together, hoarded away, not daring to show any further weakness in front of her. He’d had enough of that.

She collected one of the scalpels in hand as well as the bottle he offered to her - if he had more time, he would’ve run the design by her; after all, it was her blood that he wanted to keep and admire. The least he could’ve done was make sure the bottle was aesthetically to her liking but he supposed that she wouldn’t care too much. It wasn’t as though it was going on any of her shelves. Parker was also… not pleased, but found a strange internal satisfaction when she gave him confirmation that he understood the physical qualities of her blood, at least on a superficial level.

And the prospect fascinated him. If her blood sat solidly in her veins, not pumping anything to or from her heart, what did her insides look like? Were they petrified, relics in a demonic body that were preserved? Were they completely alien and so different from human physiology that he couldn’t even comprehend their shapes? The thoughts were brief but still rather strong and Parker shook his head to get rid of them; one thing at a time. He could feel what little patience he managed to maintain control of threatening to slip between shaking fingers, the gauge in his brian that served as visual shorthand for his tolerance for people indicating that he was simultaneously running out of steam and wavering uncertainly near the boiling point.

He kept his icy eyes on her, finding himself curious about where she’d choose - it was obvious that her palm drizzled the glimmery stuff freely so her skin, demonic or not, wasn’t impenetrable. Would she choose someplace subtle, like a thumb or would she go for a place where the skin was thicker, and ergo would be less painful? She obviously felt pain if her reaction at the museum was any indicator. …She went with the finger. The ring finger on her left hand. Parker wondered what her choice meant but he didn’t bother asking.

Instead, as she worked, he caught the look on her face but didn’t presume it to be anything more than what it was - concentration for trying to let the stream of sparkling blood fall as cleanly as possible into the bottle and perhaps some pain from the location or how deep she cut. He knew hunters, Wardens or no, who relished in those looks, ranging from pain to anger to fear. Parker took no pleasure in any of it and rather than allow himself to become mesmerized by the rhythmic beauty of the blood, he busied himself with a couple of very specific tasks, namely pulling out a thick adhesive strip for her when she finished and a checkbook.

Did people still use checks? He did. Hopefully she’d be okay with that - Inge probably thought Parker wasn’t as smart as she was, yet he wasn’t nearly stupid enough to walk around carrying more than a hundred in cash. Too many pickpockets and guttersnipes in that town for his liking, though at least the last kid that tried to steal from him ended up with a dislocated shoulder. However, he couldn’t keep that train of thought from traveling back to the alley a few nights ago. He inhaled deeply, attempting to keep his nerves from flaring apropos of nothing and instead attempted to distract himself from the thought as he wrote the amount - five thousand and 00/100 - in rather neat handwriting on the check as he leaned against a counter near her.

After he finished, he set the pen down atop the now-closed checkbook and collected the adhesive where he opened it with the dexterity and professionalism of a doctor, holding it out for her to take once she was finished and to help mitigate getting the powdery blood anywhere other than the bottle and perhaps the floor.

—

He didn’t answer her, which made her assume the answer was perhaps yes. Inge knew wounded pride; she wore that plenty, never gladly and always with the intention of shedding it as quickly as possible. Now, she wore her scars with pride, but she hadn’t always — not when they’d been fresh, healing lines of red, painful to the touch. In those times, she'd look at them with distaste and anger, covering them as if they were the ugliest thing known to man.

She certainly didn’t speak of her scars often. Not the ones left by her own scratching fingers, when she’d been a mortal and plagued by a mare of her own. Not the one left by Elena Cortez, lining her neck. Not the fresh one on her arm, from Rhett. The one on her stomach, by the Italian hunter whose name she never learned. And she would not speak of the line on her finger, once healed, as perhaps this was a source of shame too.

It was indeed a poetic choice to go for the left hand ring finger. Here, she had once worn her wedding band, the thing that tied her to Hendrik Beenhakker, that man that still lived and breathed in the home country, whom she had once loved but now mostly resented. Father of her child. Source of previous unhappiness. He’d slid that ring onto her finger and for years, she’d been unhappy — until her death.

If there was a finger to mar, it was this one.

She watched the energy trickle from her body and she knew, this would be a shameful scar. Inge disliked commodification, and yet here she was, exchanging her blood for money and experience, lacerating her own skin for a scam. Of course, there wasn’t just shame to feel: there was also all the thrill and shock she felt, running through her nervous system most things didn’t. She was affected, by this place and this man, by the way he offered her an adhesive for a self-inflicted wound in a way a kind, yet professional nurse might.

She closed her wound, sliding the full bottle towards him. It was strange, to look at the substance collected like that, the way it sat there mostly stagnant but seemed to move a little regardless, the bright lights shining merrily in the solid that gave her life. Inge took, in return, her check, looking it over for a moment – and amused by the old-fashionedness of it, which she could appreciate considering her own age – before giving a look of approval to Parker.

“Well, Parker. It was a pleasure doing business with you.” Had it been? She wasn’t here for pleasure: she was here for exposure to something that could stir her, for a thrill and a bit of extra money. But it was a thing people said. And she had gotten what she came for, and then some. He called them specimens. She looked him over, wondering if he was getting greedy.

The check disappeared into her pocket, and she looked around, eyes resting on the bit of tail for a moment. “Now … I do appreciate your hospitality, but I have a few other matters to tend to tonight, if that’s alright.” She wanted gone from here, this haunted place. (She hadn’t seen any ghosts, but still — other supernatural creatures had died here.) She looked back to Parker, wondering if she should show her hand and just disappear on him now or be led out the human, slow way. “I can find my way out myself. If everything is up to your liking too, of course.”

—

Five thousand dollars for what essentially amounted to… two to three fluid ounces of shimmery blood from the ring finger of a self-professed succubus. Five thousand dollars for the time, effort, exposing this part of himself with no guarantee that Inge would hold her end of the bargain, keep his sanctuary and workshop hidden from whoever might’ve offered her more than five thousand dollars for the information. Parker recalled the faces, types, voices of the many fae he’d taken wings from in the past, how many people Inge seemed to speak to on a regular basis publicly, let alone privately. He thought about what he would’ve done if someone were to–

The thought started to swing the pendulum subconsciously and once the adhesive strip had been accepted by the demon, Parker’s hand found itself gripping the edge of the chrome counter with a tightness that whitened his knuckles and started to warp the metal underneath the pressure. However, absolutely determined not to fall apart in front of her a second time (as a part of his mind that was smothered in professionalism and control was still reeling with internal embarrassment from earlier), the Warden breathed deeply through his nose, evenly, maintaining that strict semblance of composure.

He needed to be alone. This social exchange had far exceeded his capacity to entertain that night, and that was even before whatever was happening was happening. The words she was saying were starting to turn into indecipherable buzzing whether he wanted them to or not - that wasn’t a symptom of whatever problem he was having, that was just a symptom of being Parker himself. Of course, he picked up terms like ‘appreciate the hospitality’ (something he was almost certain was a lie) and when she commented that she could find her way out herself, it took him longer than it should’ve for him to contemplate whether or not to just let her go while he stayed there in that room.

The Warden glanced over at the tail of the clueless individual he’d harvested from the previous day, staring intently at it for a long moment before he gave a noncommittal nod. “Of course.” He pulled away from the counter with its new bend in the metal. “I’ll walk you to the… hall door.” Parker said as he walked - exiting the establishment was much easier than entering it; it was a rather short trip all things considered and she was a demon so he wasn’t sure if she possessed any powers of teleportation but if she did, he’d rather not have known about it. How strange for him, to want to remain ignorant of something. Perhaps if he wasn’t privy to that information, he could rationalize how she wouldn’t just return on a whim, maybe when he wasn’t there, dig through his things. Touch his stuff.

So, back through the short hall with its two branching rooms and distinct smell of cinnamon and coffee. Back to the door that shielded everything Parker made of himself from the rest of the blissfully unaware world. Back to the metal that closed the black mouth of the entrance walkway where he stood to the side, gave Inge a signature stare (though this time, one could’ve sworn that it was laced with tiredness) and held the door open for her. “This was… enlightening.” He said, not dishonestly though he still wondered about his mental state if how much glittery blood he got seemed worth the price he paid, both literally in terms of money and in exchange for her knowing where he worked.

He opted not to think about it anymore. Not that night. Not without any of his family there to interpret his thoughts for him.

“Have a good evening, Ms. Ingeborg Endeman.”

#the collector's workshop.#parker.#threads.#TY RANDOM for the banner!#and this amazing thread #so much insight on both characters ... gosh i loved it

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