SHORT STORY: His Siren - Part 2
Part 2 of ‘His Siren’ is here! I hope you enjoy… A few people may recognize this a little bit as I had posted a shorter, older version of this in a newsletter. I’m excited to finally be tackling this story in full now.
His Siren
Part 2
Six months previous…
Year 6497 AC
Heartfair, Kingdom of Aiova
The Dancing Snake Tavern
Immeral tapped his fingers against the rough-hewn grain of the tavern's table. The surface was sticky and he grimaced. He'd chosen a spot at the back of the establishment—great for watching the door. But unfortunately, it also made him acutely aware of the disruptive group of dwarves that wouldn't stop yelling and starting fights.
What would happen if I just got up and left? He wondered idly. Better yet, punch at least one of those idiots on my way out.
His "client" was already over an hour late, and he was on his third mug of whatever piss passed for alcohol in this place.
Normally, he wouldn't be caught dead in such a dive; if he wanted to imbibe shitty drinks and listen to drunks bicker, he'd play cards with the assholes he called friends. When they can pull their heads from their asses long enough to make plans. He refused to acknowledge the bitterness he felt at that.
In places like this, even with all the disreputable characters that tended to frequent this tavern, he still stood out in a way that made him uncomfortable. Being over seven feet tall and having glowing red eyes attracted too much attention. In his line of work, memorability could be a killer—the irony wasn’t lost on him.
Immeral slammed back the last of the liquor in his mug and enjoyed the sensation of it burning his throat. He raised his hand and caught the eye of the young elven woman behind the bar. She flinched at his gaze and then turned around with a quick nod. At least the service here is passable.
In the few minutes it took for her to set a new mug down on his table, Immeral couldn't stop his irritation at his late client from rising. A dwarf the table over had come dangerously close to spilling his drink on the relicti and it took everything in him not to become the fiend these people suspected him to be and raze this place to the ground.
The elf had just returned back behind the bar when the door to the tavern opened, and a fairy floated in on gossamer wings. She was just as his contact had described her, yet, he was caught off-guard.
Deep purple wings whose shape wouldn't have been out of place on a butterfly turned to a rich pink closer to her back. They shimmered in the candlelight and threw glinting colours around the room. Violet hair, only a few shades lighter than her wings, was plaited upon her head with the end trailing down her back, contrasting sharply with her pink skin and bright green eyes.
She'd eschewed the traditional fairy gowns that Immeral was used to seeing and had instead opted for an outfit more befitting of the scorching climate of Aiova. A scrap of dark cloth with green accents covered her chest—the fabric pulled to the center by a large green jewel. Baggy pants made of the same material hung from her slender waist and a small, spiked club dangled from her belt. It was a crude weapon with the kind of marks that showed true usage and he refused to think about why that was almost more distracting than the vast expanse of her skin on display.
She seemed to spot him and her painted red lips curved into a smile tinged with feral promises.
She glided across the floor toward him, deftly avoiding a drunken grab from one of the dwarves. Deep plum-coloured magic flared and the man reeled back, cursing and holding a now burned hand to his chest. She hadn’t even glanced at the man. Instead, her eyes had been locked on Immeral’s own.
Immeral couldn’t help the way his eyebrows rose at the seemingly effortless display of magic. He’d seen celestials put more effort into their offensive magical attacks for less impressive results.
She reached his table and practically poured herself into the chair across from him.
He leant back and felt warm satisfaction burn through him as she tore her gaze away to look him up and down. Somehow, despite his heavy cloak with the hood pulled up to hide his blood-red horns, he felt naked beneath her gaze.
"I must say," her voice was low and smooth, lilting—not quite what he’d been expecting—then again, nothing about her was. "You aren’t exactly the kind of mercenary I was looking for.”
"Oh?"
She let out a light chuckle and slid to the edge of the chair. Her hand—reddish-pink with long nails, painted a blood-red—slid across the table and grabbed Immeral's full mug. She lifted it to her mouth and downed it before setting it back on the wood with a hollow clack.
"I was expecting someone," her voice dropped even quieter, "Mortal."
He felt slightly—irrationally, he acknowledged—annoyed. "Does that matter?"
Her eyes narrowed at him. "It makes me wonder why you're on Saebetia posing as a mercenary. I need a professional, not a fiend that got bored and wants to slum it." She gestured around the dingy tavern with disgust.
"You're in luck," Immeral said, straightening up, "I'm the best." He'd ponder later why he felt the burning need to prove himself to this mortal.
"Someone's cocky," she noted, a smirk on her face.
"I have a reason to be."
She didn’t respond for a second, instead she just stared at him, gaze calculating. "You're just like Ghis described."
"And how did he describe me?" His contact, Ghis, was a bastard that would do anything for money—and most likely had. That was probably why they worked together so well. Neither fully trusted the other and would sell the other out in a heartbeat. It made for a strictly transactional partnership. Immeral didn’t need to trust him—because Ghis knew the relicti would kill anyone sent after him and then kill Ghis for selling him out.
The fairy let out a little laugh. "To-the-point and overconfident, a man with no qualms or morals and doesn't mind getting his hands dirty. That if I agreed to your price, you’d do it.”
“Bastard just described himself,” Immeral muttered. "Just what is it you're asking me to do?"
She glanced around before standing and floating around to his side of the table. She dipped her head to whisper in his ear. "I'll give you more details in private." A hand skimmed across his covered arm and Immeral’s brain stopped working just long enough that he almost missed her next words, "Let's just say, how do you feel about grave-robbing?"
Immeral reeled backward from her. Of all the things he’d been expecting, graverobbing wasn’t one of them.
He shook his head to clear it of the shock her words had ignited and said, “Never gone that far. I prefer to keep under Nillioth’s radar whenever possible.” The God of Death would likely not take too kindly to a Heretic—the name for celestials who abandoned their gods to live in Saebetia—defiling a mortal's final resting place.
Her hand tightened on his arm. “Are you saying I should find someone else to take the job?” Her head had moved back near his ear again and he was acutely aware of the warmth radiating from her body and her breath hot against him.
He shook her hand from his arm and stood sharply, his chair falling to the ground with a crash he barely heard. Fuck it, Nillioth and his pet Headtaker haven’t come for me yet. “Not at all, but my services do not come cheap.”
She straightened up, raking her eyes over him before meeting his own, a grin on her face. “I am sure you do not, but money won’t be a concern.”
