Spica's House

Spica slept for days, weeks, maybe even months, slowly replenishing her lost energy. As she had already finished her flirtations with death during her first trip, Spica simply drifted back and forth among the realm the humans had called "sleep." Inwardly, she sighed as dreams clamored for her attention as she waded through them as if through a boggy mire; slowly, but impatiently, with a thoroughly disgusted look on her face.

Finally, after a timeless time, Spica's eyes fluttered open and she stretched luxuriously. She sat up, scratching her scalp with thick man-fingers. Looking around comfortably bleary, the transformed Spica popped his manly shoulders and smiled brilliantly from a clean-shaven face. "That was a nice nap," he swung his legs over the side of the cot and peered out from beneath his tousled, honey-colored hair, his navy-blue eyes glinting eagerly. "Now where is that boy?"

Spica stood and started peering around, his lithe, wiry body bouncing with each step as the demon peered into the recently added and extremely spartan living room.

Ceberus snapped out of his dream like state, though his eyes were closed, at the sound of footsteps. He figured his master was awake. He peered his eyes open and noticed a slightly different aura. It was the same person, but only it was that of a man. He chuckled inwardly, she-- err, he changed into a man. He figured he would soon master this trick to change to all ages instead of just genders.

"Good morrow, master," Ceberus greeted, remaining in his spot.

Ceberus attention was immediately drawn away from their present location to the city of the elves and to the city of the humans. A certain key player in his plan was changed unexpectantly and the elven were met someone who has the potential to change him to his former glory. This worried him slightly, but he felt it to be no problem. A bloody vampire and bloody elf were no threat to him once the demons were united. And if Kanas joined their cause like he was meant to, there would also be no problem.

"Master," Ceberus called, "I have a request for you since I am to be retained here. A certain were has made it to his homeland. If he were to become an elf once again, he would regain his former status and become one of the most powerful creatures here. Do you think you could.... Check up on them and tell me what there are doing please? Since I am a deluder, you have access to all my wealth in this wretched city."

Spica had simply smiled at the greeting, moving forward to crouch at the boy's side. Cerberus's request and subsequent bribe had merely widened the grin, and the demon chuckled slightly. "Your wealth was already mine, boy," he giggled.

He sniffed the echoes of worry emanating from his pupil and stood. "Since it bothers you so very much," Spica snorted nonchalantly, "I guess we could take a look-see. Come along."

The demon tripped back to his rom, eyes sparkling as he crouched and reached beneath the bed. "Come out, come out, wherever you are~" he sung. Hah~ It's so nice to be awake, he tittered, tugging at an ornately carved handle until a wooden chest peered out from under the rumpled sheets. And now I get to play!

His thin lips curled in a soft, loving smile as his long, spindly fingers caressed the well-oiled wood. There was a soft click and the lid popped up. Spica flicked back the lid and shuffled through the seemingly random pile of gadgets that littered the inside of the chest. After a few moments of clinks and clanks and a good bit of tuneless humming, Spica emerged again with a tiny mirror, no more than a few finger-widths across and coated with dust.

"Here we are!" Spica laughed, blowing the thin layer of film off. With a smooth, swift movement, Spica kicked the chest back under the bed, where it protested loudly for a moment for such rough treatment. "Oh, hush your bellyaching!" Spica grumbled at the groaning furniture.He spat on the small mirror and rubbed it with the corner of his shirt before looking up. "You ready?"

"Ready when you are, mate," Ceberus said as he looked into the mirror, waiting for some sort of suprising image to appear. He had a feeling he would want to jump through the image if he could once he saw what he saw. But this was his normal impish impulse.

After a sharp nod, Spica bent over the mirror, mumbling and shielding it from Ceberus's view unintentionally. He felt the sharp drain on his barely replenished stores of ability and winced. D---, Spica scowled, Still not done.

He reached to Lolth, disturbing the spider's midday meal and calling her over. His familiar was angry at him, but he needed to borrow the spider's strength for the spell. Again, Spica cursed his complete lack of any real magical ability before he turned back to the mirror. Its silver surface was beginning to shiver and shimmer, seeming almost to ripple inward from the frame. In the center, a single black point of tarnish blossomed and grew until the mirror itself was a cool, unreflecting black as smooth as glass and deeper than a pit. Spica placed it in his lap carefully. Every uneven movement made the glass shimmer as if it were a television shifting in and out of focus. He reached into Ceberus's mind and ripped the required image from it forcefully. Spica needed the destination if he was to travel there. On the other hand, until Ceberus saw the place again or somehow visited it, it would be completely gone from his memory. Spica shrugged mentally. Too bad this only works when they're bound.

Spica finally spoke audibly once the mirror was set, his voice at a queer, strained pitch. "... Be my eyes, that I might see afar..."

With one, swift movement and merely a flinch and whimper of pain, Spica impaled his left eye with a thin black needle and proceeded to pull it out amid a sickening sucking noise, followed by a pop. The eye that leapt from the empty, yawning gap in Spica's face was perfectly round and seemed almost dry, save for the black blood that sizzled away at the sight of light. The orb was without even a trace of the nerves that one would normally find streaming out behind. The navy-blue iris widened and flashed a multitude of colors as Spica regarded it for a moment with his one good eye. "I've never really enjoyed this part..." he commented offhand, as if he was simply looking at an unsavory hors d'ouvre.

He closed his eyelid carefully, caved in though it was, and put a white cloth up to his empty socket to stop the slow trickle of black blood from spilling down his face and onto the mirror before sliding the now completely white eyeball off of the needle with a toe. It fell with a squishy plop onto the face of the mirror. It sat for a moment, staring almost balefully up at the pair, a clean, white orb surrounded by a ring of darkness. Spica spat on it again, almost derisively this time, and whispered, "Eye, open."

The orb sank below the surface slowly, almost majestically, vivid colors spreading from it eagerly to lap against the sides. As the eye finally dipped below the surface, an image shifted and appeared, as clear as if it was simply on the other side of a peephole. No sound emanated from it, but a swift scroll of characters translated the banter between the two chattering in the picture.

Spica's single working eye was closed, his face slack. "Is this what you wanted to see?" Spica quipped quietly, barely breathing.

His empty socket ached horribly and poor Lolth was halfway drained already; Spica hoped that the Deluder would be done soon. Much more than that, though, she hoped that neither of the two that they were watching would notice the orb staring at them intently, hidden though it was. If the eye didn't get back safely, Spica would have to find a replacement and the priceless mirror itself would shatter.