✿ the pretty little bird IV_
✿ Elenei Kiều_
Tatiana Kuznetsova_
✿ Day one, midnight_
”What the hell is wrong with you?”
The fly buzz, buzz, buzzed with Mel. It wasn’t this to her was it? Was it not there? There were scant people here. But none reacted to the whispers of the hell bug whizzing about her.
“What are you forgetting?”
Mel furrowed her brow. She was forgetting something?
“Thanatos…?” She thought. But she knew that wasn’t it.
“What new force has touched you?”
”The cute one?” She wondered,
“Andri?” “What is it you’re waiting for”
The buzzing continued.
Th-the train. Something told her it felt that she thought wrong.
The fly continued to buzz, only pausing every few minutes to rest on one of her dimples. Mel leaned against a pillar in the graffiti covered train station. The pillar she leaned against was awash in the rainbow colors of gangs battling to claim the structure-- this single piece of tiled architecture that seemed to hold up this underground transit stop. She supposed it was important territory.
Across from her a brave soul had somehow sprayed the word ‘mermaid’ across the tracks. The ground was littered with newspapers and fast food wrappers. Under the wonderful aqua stencil work of mermaid was a purple ‘619.’ Elenei crossed her arms.
That wasn’t an area code.
“I don’t have much for a woman like you but questions.”
‘That sounds like a quote from something....’ Mel couldn’t help but think that-- “A woman like me?” She said out loud, ignoring the stares from the late night businessmen, the bundled up homeless and the graffers around her.
“There are no answers. You have to trust yourself.”
Mel rolled her eyes. This was stupid. “You’re stupid.” she whispered, “This is stupid and dumb. Shut up, Yamochka.” So focused was she on ignoring the dumb fly’s erratic, calculated movements that she didn’t ask herself where that name had come from. It whizzed around her like the birds around the head of a cartoon character-- or, like some poetic Beelzebub halo. It’s voice rasped and banged around her skull, like the whisper of the most beautiful old woman you could imagine. A siren would outlived the world at least once.
It was stupid.
“Where do evil men end up?”
“What?” Mel turned. Just as a train going in the opposite direction showed up, leaving as soon as it arrived at this station, rumbling the world. The fly, Yamochka, was gone. For a moment, the world was partially silent. Like one of those ancient artifacts made of plastic that played music-- the needle would trail along, and there was this eerie silence. It wasn’t actually quiet, you always heard something, somewhere, even if it was just your own breath, but the next song hadn’t started yet.
“Ma’am? May ah have a littl’ change?” A strong and weak voice asked from beside and below her.
Mel wasn’t ready for the next song just yet. She jumped, taken aback by the man now sitting next to her. He must have gotten off of that last train-- but how he’d gotten over to her so quickly, without her noticing… It bothered her.
She hadn’t had enough to get drunk, but she was acting sloppy. People weren’t supposed to be able to sneak up on her, this felt new. Was it the fly? Perhaps she’d always been this sloppy, and she wasn’t used to people besides whores and hits noticing her.
Mel looked down on the slim-built man beside her. He seemed kind enough-- he was Black, old-- too old to be outside on such a cool night. He was well bundled, but not as well as other homeless men she’d encountered. He wore an old, black wrinkled suit and black dress shorts, like the ones a child wears-- he’d somehow fit a thin black hoodie underneath the suit-- and over that a large green jacket with the texture of a tarp-- it seemed to be from some war she didn’t recognize. Knowing the military of this country, the internal mesh probably had biolinks and heat sensors…
His face was a mess of wrinkles. The kind you’d see on a priest or pug. While he kept the green hood of the military jacket down, the large black hood was pulled up, from this angle it covered his eyes, and left snow white locks of hair pouring from either side of the hood-- they were long, some of them reaching the floor, despite having the strong scent of a homeless man, they seemed to be well maintained. They almost shone white like bone as they fell from the hood, only nearer to the ground did they begin to accumulate dirt and muck. In his lap, rested a small dog-- a golden mutt.
He was an injured man as well-- something Mel noticed after her initial shock. His legs were… gone, below the knees. Out of his pack jutted a pair of rusted, rudimentary prosthetic legs-- they were old and a little misshapen from use without repair, a nice silver where they weren’t rusted, but Mel was willing to bet they probably didn’t have the processing power to bend the knees, let alone the feet. The left sleeve of the green jacket hung limp, and he didn’t seem to have a left arm AT ALL. Though, in his pack his had a prosthetic for his arm-- it seemed newer. It was white as his hair and looked to be a simple bone based model-- while wondering why he didn’t have it on, she noticed his right hand, he wore a white glove-- but even with that she could see the bumps of arthritis riddling his joints.
The last thing one notices-- or might not even notice, is the perfect right wing he’s hidden under his jacket. He kept it scrunched up, but even so, even at his age, it was large enough that you might notice a few white feathers peeking out from underneath.
Mel paused.
White feathers? “It’s tah help mah soul- tah feed yo’ mind.” He spoke slowly, smiling as he did so, Mel noted the strange accent he spoke in.
Mel had already begun riffling through her pockets, “I’m sorry?”
“Wada fo’ life. Sun fo’ wahmf. Air fo’ bweaf. Earf fo’ wheat. What mo’ does one need?”
“Money?” Mel handed the man a wad of bills she didn’t need, “Get yourself some new legs with, this, okay?”
The man smirked as he let out a laugh, “Ya,” His right hand closed slowly around the bills, “Ya ah need dis too.” He smiled with yellowed teeth, “Ah like that...” His tone became more serious as his smile dampened, “But yuh know, this just a conveahsashun. We only need dis ‘cause we says we do. Like a pwayah to the Almighty.”
“Conversation?” Mel checked the time, “With who?”
“Dah fahmahs, dah buildahs, dah engineahs and the shamans who tend to earf.” He put the money in his pack, “Dis jus a way ov askin’ da earf fo’ sumthin’.”
“Oh.” Mel shifted impatiently.
“Yaw pweoccupied now. Das awright. Ah’ll tell you the res lata’.” He pet his dog with his hand, stirring it from its rest, “Whas good is that you lack gweed. Ah get to see ya again soon.”
Her train rumbled the station as it arrived. A sharp pain shot through her stomach, like a million parasites wanted to eat their way out. She gasped, turning to the man, “
What?”
His smile was light, “Don’ miss yo’ twain.” As the doors slid open with a ding, Yamochka buzzed out of them-- she needed to get on. She took a few steps toward the train as the fly buzzed back to her cheek, stopping for a moment as he said slowly, perhaps to himself, “Stay on the paf, Helel.”
Mel turned, suddenly and endless stream of questions coursing through her mind-- but she needed to get on that train. All she could ask was, “What’s your name?”
He smiled at that, “Cawrect, names have they place.” He said curtly. The dog in his lap curled up further, the man set out his cigarette and began petting his furry companion, “Ah’aight. Cahll me
Vesuvius.”
She had a train to catch-- yet she couldn’t move. Something about that name caught her off guard and paralyzed her for a moment. Vesuvius closed his eyes and gave a soft smile, his wrinkles made him look like the kindliest grandpa she’d ever seen.
What the hell was it with her and spiritual apparitions with weirdo names tonight?
A fly landed on his cheek… was that
Yamochka? The dog… was that a dog? It had a reptilian tongue that shot out faster than Mel could blink. The man reacted as if the pup had simply licked him, like his dog hadn’t just eaten the fly like a frog.
Mel’s eyes narrowed, slowly turning to leave, “Baron V for short, then.”
“You smell like a medicine store, kid.”
“Shut up, Belwas, you cockney bastard. You smell like cat piss and spit.” Mel entered the Sinner Lady, gripping her forehead. Her excursion had had too many needless complications, she didn’t like thinking this much this early on in the evening. She’d stopped by a midnight pharmacy for some relief from the headache of it all.
The big blue demon harrumphed, “I had to break up a fight. Where was my little bird? Fight ain’t supposed to happen here? The hell am I paying you for?”
Making her way over to the bar, showing whatever skinny part-timer was working there today, she popped open a bottle of holy water, and began mixing herself a vodka halo martini. “To test out the merchandise?” The first sip burned, like being smited by a holy being from Russia. “New girl’s shit in bed by the way.”
“Luna?” Belwas leaned on the bar, “She’s been here for years.”
“Yeah?” Mel took another sip, “Well she’s shit in bed. Can’t give head for shit and she just lays there like a board.”
Belwas, “Some guys are into pillow princesses, Birdie.” He got himself a beer, “Besides, she’s one of our better dancers.”
“Uh-huh?” Mel downed the rest of the martini and began mixing herself another, nibbling on the olive, “Well she’s got a husband-- she isn’t built for this job, Belwas. She only slept with me because she’s a fan.”
“You’ve got fans?”
Mel shrugged, “News to me too.”
He laughed.
“She’s a snitch in the making, Belwas.” She slammed down the bottle of holy water, “Cut her off before a pig sniffs her out.” Picking up her glass, she left the bar, moving toward the crowds around the strippers.
“Damnit…” He muttered, Looking back up from his beer, she was already halfway to a jungle of poles, women and plush sheets. “Thanks, Birdie-- hey where you going?”
“Gotta make sure everyone sees my face.” Mel sipped her holy water martini, “Can’t have the rabble fucking things up just because I’m out getting laid, right?”
“What about Thanatos?” He yelled after her.
“What about him?” Mel stopped short of being sucked into the crowd.
“He’s got some new tech, people actually betting for him this time around believe it or not, kiddo. You get to be the underdog again!”
Elenei glanced lazily toward a long legged girl with auburn hair. “Later. Still too horny, not drunk enough.”
And with that-- she crossed a threshold in the room, becoming just out of the ear- reach of Belwas’ yells over the noisey, overly-processed music that blared from the speakers. Cookie cutter pop/R&b produced by some literal robot, one of the larger record companies music AI, no doubt-- Mel was never too big a fan of it, her teacher had raised her on the old stuff, where people sang and robots made the music. That was better, she felt.
She seemed to enter a completely different realm of existence. Mel’s movements became slowed, tiny shifts of her feet to meet the compromised movement forced on her by the crowd. She hated it-- or, she wasn’t sure she could hate. She didn’t feel intensity like that, though if she had a love it was being able to move her body, and having this imposed will of others, a stupid will without a leader save for the shitty synth r&b, but a will imposed on her none the less. She supposed if she was capable of hating anything, it was that. It was this.
She stepped on as many people’s feet as possible as she made her way through the crowd. She doubted the hoofed demons in their pantsuits and workboots could feel the half-hearted stomps from her cotton slippers. But, it made her feel better, it allowed her to take her mind off of the affairs from earlier. She never liked being reminded people knew who she was.
That was something she liked about hookers, strippers and whores-- the good ones, anyway-- they were usually too uninformed to piece together who this Asian waif with the French accent was, there was no ‘Ohhh’ of recognition when they saw her raven wing. Instead, merely a motherly ‘Ohhh’ like, a mother asking her child how they got that injury, ohh sweetie, that’s a beautiful dye job, was, don’t worry, I’ll make you feel better.
In the blue hued crowd, thick with smoke, and the musk of men who thrived on the ichor of others... something, something, something. She reckoned she ought to scan the crowd for a bit, or at the very least make her presence noticeable. There were plenty of pedestals where yound demonic yuppies with horns and probably scary names like Azathoth, Uriel and Richard would gather and gawk and throw their money from their plush pink and purple couches, as if it was some fine art, a Renaissance statue of the feminine form on a pillar, they were appreciating. She doubted many of them cared for the complexities of the dances the women could do on the jungle gym of twisting poles all across the room. Mel knew that she didn’t.
No, like her, they were there for a facefull of ass, a dance or two, and maybe a blood job if they were high rollers. Unlike her, they had physical bills to pay for it. The purple hue of the room made the money they threw gleam silver. The complex network of poles were like black veins that spanned the room like circulatory system. That was funny, considering how many of the dancers gave blood jobs.
But those were just the pedestals. Private shows and guaranteed dances that everyone could see. If you had more money you’d get your own room. SHe supposed most of the Yuppies
did have enough money for their own rooms, and instead they wanted others to
see. Mel supposed that was where the similarities between them ended-- Elenei had been raised to be ashamed of her sexuality, and hide it away like a good Catholic girl, but know how to use it, like a good Vietnamese girl. Monaco had left her a better Vietnamese girl than a Catholic one. She supposed she mostly saw sexuality as something gross only when it came to
other people.
The placement of the pedestals toward the front contrasted the placement of tables toward the rear, the entrance, and the bar. You were close enough to see dancers, but far enough away that you only got half the thrill. The servers got to you faster, but if all you were getting was drinks and laid they always came to you last-- in fact, it was rare to see servers not hovering around, or running to or from the main runway.
Ahh, the main runway. That would be a good place to sit-- She was sure this place had used to be a grand theatre hall once, because of that runway. A stage with blue and violet velvet curtains, and a long, hardwood runway that jutted into the front of the front room-- as far away from the entrance as one could get while keeping it in site. Stairs behind the curtains led to the back offices, the basements, where fights took place, and, if you went up enough, a beautiful penthouse-- reserved for real VIPS.
As she pushed her way through men, and the circular couches they inhabited, the runway came into sight. It was a beautiful mahogany masterpiece, jutting into the room like a wooden phallus, with a side covered in garish christmas lights. It illuminated the dancers along the runway’s length, dancing on their black spike poles in the smoke about as well as her martini was doing at getting her drunk.
This part of the room had the highest concentration of people (mostly men) ogling dancers-- because you didn’t have to pay to see the dancers (mostly women). You just risked getting trampled by all the people behind you if you weren’t paying enough.
Mel had to begin physically pushing people out of her way. She took care not to bruise anyone too much-- as her grip had been described as
‘hellish,’ ‘what the fuck, holy shit AGGGHHHHH,’ and
‘I actually really dug that, I thought you were gonna straight rip it off and eat it for a second.’ Pushing a man in a black suit with the head of a stallion out of her way, Mel leaped onto the tip of the runway with a
‘hup.’ Making due with a slight change in elevation, Elenei scanned the crowd, and the whole of the room. She sighed, taking another sip of her drink
This was all so stupid.
“This is stupid.” Tatiana muttered to herself as she reached to the back of her neck with her free hand to scratch at a rather persistent itch for the umpteen-quintillienth time. The blood from her earlier meeting had yet to be dry cleaned off, much to her chagrin. She had money, but sometimes even that couldn’t speed the process along enough. As it was, she was forced to wear a different coat than her treasured centenarian of a coat. Really more of a tricentenarian of a coat, considering its history. First issued to Sergeant Alexei Kuznetsova in World War II, passed down from generation to generation since. It’d be almost nothing but a worn down rag by the time she inherited it, but after she’d come into
super dark drug racketeering Godless sinful blood money of illicit riches money she’d had the thing professionally restored and then heavily upgraded. Was it all the same fabric as the original? No, obviously not, but to her, it was the same coat that had seen many ancestors weather the harshness of the constant flux of the world.
It was surprising how sentimental one could get over a shitty old Soviet coat. The one she was wearing for the time being was rather nice, but it felt… too new. There were no stories in this coat. No history. It was clean, new, sharp… and completely barren of any distinguishing qualities. But… she smirked - it did certainly show off her figure better. Perhaps tonight she would give this coat its first story to tell.
She was a regular at this bar, and if she was to be honest it was a miracle the police hadn’t figured it out yet and laid an ambush here for her. Not that they’d find a warm reception here of course.
The chill of the brisk night air behind her, Tatiana shook her hair free of the coat as she idly strolled through the building. Just what she would do tonight was uncertain - maybe join the strippers for a laugh; find some young naive man or woman, show them the night, leave them hungover in the morning with a hefty sum of cash for a fun night, try and seduce one of the more “experienced” patrons, get into an argument with someone, maybe go for a little sparring? The possibilities were
!
Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw a familiar face, Mel’s. She quirked an eyebrow, giving her a courteous wave before glancing about the room once more.
With a tilt of her head, Mel downed the rest of her martini and hopped down off the phallic, jutting runway stage for the moment. Smashing the glass against the head of some unfortunate baldy who was leaning in too close to the girls for her comfort. Other men moved back at this, Mel rolled her eyes-- It was like herding sheep.
With a flick of her fingers, Mel had a girl bring her drinks-- two of her favorite. Some sour fireball whiskey brewed in hell. The legend went that only the brain cells that could revive as even stronger demons survived a shot. It was an alright drink, all in all.
Giving her best attempt at a smile and curtsy, Mel greeted Tatiana as the manners toward respected elders and associates instilled by her family kicked in, “Hello Miss Kuznetsova-- I wasn’t expecting to see you this evening!” Her smile was slightly, forced, and visibly confused, though thankfully only barely visible in the dimness, “I’m so sorry, no one even asked to take your coat!”
Tatiana quirked an eyebrow at Mel’s disposition to her before sighing internally. She often wished she could simply take what money she had and start anew, without her reputation or anything else. It came with the territory she knew, but it still never failed to aggravate her - she was hardly some pompous wannabe noble, was it too much for her to want a drink or some company once in awhile?
She looked over at Mel, waving a hand in the air nonchalantly, “Little secret, I have no idea how I got to where I am, but tonight I’m just here to unwind. Bodyguards mean I have business, no bodyguards means I’m trying to pretend I don’t run an international criminal organization for the night. Generates a lot of paperwork you know, sometimes a girl wants to have some fun. Not sure what I’ll do yet though, maybe make good on that old joke and dance on the pole for a little bit?” She smirked, nodding at Mel’s drink, “What’s that you’ve got there? Doesn’t look like something a rich man’s daughter would drink, now does it?”
Slipping a nondescript steel flask out of her coat, she winked, taking a sip of the bourbon inside. “By the way, if I’m making you uncomfortable just say so. I’m really just here for some fun tonight, so if you wouldn’t mind dropping the surnames and the ‘Miss’ I’d appreciate it. No need to remind me of my age.”
The sight of Tatiana roused Mel from the spell the night had cast on her, she remembered plotting a man’s murder with her not hours ago-- only so many things could shake her so, among them were high profile guests and pretty ones, typically the two never intertwined-- never before had they seemingly come to her despite all they’d spoken of earlier. Tatiana’s carmine hair reflected azure light and shone through the smoke sogged air like a lilac flame. She was a very colorful woman-- one could tell by her gait. If she wasn’t as dangerous as she was, and perhaps more machine than woman, maybe…
Regardless, Tatiana, also, was amongst the richest, if not
the richest regular of this podunk strip joint. Mel had no doubt Tatiana had some kind of hand in that-- she was her father’s partner in some regard, she didn’t pay attention to what they did, that wasn’t her job.
But what she did know is that this business, one of the many her father owned, dealt in legal and ethical gray areas. Belwas was merely a manager-- a pawn. It was his partnerships to women like Miss Kuznetsova that kept business like these afloat. Out of the eyes of law enforcement and forces more powerful...
Trafficking in
things… even she didn’t know of it all… Her Father, the ambassador, wielded secrets like she wielded her sword. It was in that strength she placed her trust. And she trusted her father when he trusted this woman… But…
Mel blushed at the implications of her thinking… Maybe she deserved punishment for it-- but while she trusted her father, she didn’t trust this woman entirely. She was, by all means, incredibly infamous-- everyone here had heard of her. But no one aside from Mel herself even seemed to recognize her. This made Mel nervous for reasons she couldn’t articulate to herself.
As she stood before the woman-- she couldn’t help but recall the words they’d shared just a few hours prior...
kapuchu
