Damien and Josanna appeared in the central room of Alec’s mansion in Darkside. The room was red and lush, filled with vampires in suits and gowns, accessorized with fishnets and Doc Martens. And they were all quite startled by Damien and Josanna’s sudden appearance in the midst of their lounging.
Damien was unmoved by their slack-jawed staring. “Hey,” Damien said to the room, Josanna wiggling beside him, her barefoot toes scrunching into the carpet. “Is Alec here?” he asked.
One of the drunk young vampires yelled at the top of his lungs, ”Aleeeec!"
To this, the vampires with hangovers gave him fanged, cat-like hisses.
Damien put his hands in his pockets and cleared his throat. “Appreciate it.”
It wasn’t long before a half-asleep Alec appeared at the top of the second story railing above them in an open white blouse, looking very much like Tom Cruise as Lestat. It took the eldest Vampire Prince a few groggy seconds to realize just what he was seeing.
The dark-haired girl wiggled and then giggled up at him, and then it clicked. He rushed down the stairs, vampire-speed, and put his hands on either side of her face. Alec seemed on the verge of tears. Josanna jumped up and down in his tender grasp before Alec enveloped her in a hug, his face buried in her hair and her neck.
With Josanna and Alec next to each other, Damien became hyper-aware of what age his body appeared to be. Both she and Alec’s physical age were put into perspective for him, and he appeared quite a bit younger than them. He stayed back, stayed quiet, and gave them their moment.
But, Alec must have recognized a familiar smell or heard the sound of a heartbeat, because he raised up to peer over her shoulder at him.
Damien gave him a small nod, with every assumption his head nod should have been the end of their conversation, and he could slip away to enjoy whatever poisonous cocktail the vampires were sampling that eve. To Damien, his bringing Jossana to Darkside was a simple feat of minimal effort, a simple task.
But, as it began to dawn on Alec that Damien was the one who saved her from the Masion de Devereaux, the prince pulled himself away from Josanna’s hug. “You did this?” Alec asked.
Damien was confused, because, again, that nod had said everything it needed to say. He replied with a quick and casual, “Yeah.” And he began moving to the home bar not but twenty feet away. Alec reached out to stop him, and Damien flinched, and the Vampire Prince stopped his hand just inches away from Damien’s arm.
“You don’t know how much this means to me.” Alec’s sincere eyes burned into him.
This made Damien uncomfortable. He had never remembered a time where he wasn’t doing people favors. Loki had asked him to deliver the girl, so he did. It was unsettling to be fawned over for something so small. “It was nothing. It wasn’t even my idea. I-”
“I don’t care. You are forever welcome in my home... friend.”
Damien smirked. “Invited into a vampire’s home. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?”
Alec made no notice of the joke, but Josanna gave Damien a big smile before tiptoeing away.
“How can I ever repay you?” Alec persisted.
“Uh... You can take care of her.” He added, “You can also let me drink straight whiskey around here without giving me guff. That’d be swell!” He was relieved to be done with the conversation.
Alec gave a soft smile and gestured to the bar that Damien had been eyeing. “Of course.”
***
After drinks were made and Josanna was pulled away from giving strangers horrifying palm readings, Alec brought them to a private sitting room. The two men sat down in leather armchairs with their drinks. The candlelight in the dimly lit room appeared luminescent against the pale palms of the girl who sat on the floor.
Alec asked, “How did this happen? Victor won’t even let me near her. How did you persuade him to-”
“He didn’t ask,” Josanna said, without looking up from whispering her own palm reading to herself. “You will die young and beautiful. Oh! And engaged, but no children though-” she said hovering over and stroking her palm.
Alec and Damien paid no mind to this.
Alec asked, “You just took her?”
Damien shrugged. “It was nothing, really.”
“Nothing? What that must be like,” Alec mused.
“What?”
“To have the power to do what needs to be done where others are incapable or it would take them... years to get the same result. You can just click your fingers and accomplish whatever you wish. Just like that.” And Alec snapped his fingers with a flourish.
“No. That’s- I don’t have that power.”
“Obviously, you do.”
Damien looked over at Josanna who was glancing up at him.
“You’re a god,” Alec said.
“Gods aren’t all they’re cracked up to be...” Damien smirked and took a sip of his drink. “Most of them are drunks, and I’m not a god, despite my heritage.”
“But, what does it even mean to be a god? Heroes, priests, and kings become divine.” Alec gave an unamused laugh. “What’s stopping the rest of us?”
“Some philosophies say nothing is stopping us besides our own egos,” Damien offered.
“But of all men- gods, heroes, and kings are the most egotistical of them all,” Alec contradicted.
“And that is why I don’t want to be considered one of them.” Damien finished off his drink and asked, “Do you have anything stronger?”
Alec put his hands on the arms of his chair, preparing to stand, but Josanna appeared by his side and stole his hand to look at his palm. He laughed and attempted to move his hand to her cheek, but she ripped it back into her sights.
Alec asked, “What do you see?”
“You will have a very large family. Many, many children.”
“The most pleasant reading you’ve given yet,” he mused.
“You will be successful in business. But, you will have no friends and no one will ever truly love you.”
Alec smiled and finally stood, saying, “A small price to pay.”
Damien and Josanna both giggled at his cool demeanor.
Alec opened up the doors to the sideboard and pulled out a wooden lockbox. “For something stronger, I suggest we sample some of my private collection.” In the lockbox were tiny vials of glittering powders and liquids and pills. Alec set the box down on the top of the sideboard. “What are you in the mood for? You can have anything you’d like, my friend.”
Damien headed over to him and peered inside the box. He recognized the unicorn glitter and the hangover cures. He chuckled and shook his head. He wasn’t in the mood to feel like a rare and majestic creature, and he pulled out a small vial of sickly green bile. Something squiggled inside. Damien grimaced and asked. “What does this do?”
“That is a parasite,” Alec said. “It attaches to the inner lining of the stomach and secretes poison into your bloodstream. Not enough to kill the likes of you or me. For us, the poison induces a euphoric and hallucinogenic state. Though the pain can be excruciating.” Alec laughed. “But, pleasure and pain can be one in the same.”
Damien’s brow furrowed. “Fuck it. I’m sold.” Damien popped out the cork and made sure not to look at or smell the liquid. “Down the hatch.” He threw it back like a shot of whiskey.
***
Blood. Dancing. Spinning. Throwing up black ooze. Velvet. Skin. Teeth. Retching stomach pain. Laughing. Breathing. Hands- knotted, scarred. His hands. His old hands. In Josanna’s hands. Alone- They are alone in an empty room.
I can tell you your fortune, she said without moving her lips.
I’m not sure I want to know, his old voice replied.
Spiderwebs droop and cover the walls like lace.
Fortune hasn’t been my friend, he said. Gossamer kissing him on the neck, spiders crawling down his back. Shivers.
Josanna’s fingers glowed and burned as they hovered above his palm. Blackened. Charred. Burning twigs. Ash.
Something alive squiggled in his stomach. With his knotted hand he wiped the black ooze he coughed up from his lips.
Feeling the pain on the outside feels better, doesn’t it? she asked. It eases the shame. It lessens the guilt. The pain feels good, but you can’t live there forever.
Josanna’s black eyes grew wider and wider. Two black holes becoming one. The black circle covered her face. Then the wall and the floor.
All was black.
He was falling.
Falling...
Falling.
Crashing on black and white tile before the throne. There was an industrial track circumnavigating the room. Mirrors hung from the track. They reflected lives and stories and feelings in the silver nitrate. The track was in constant motion.
Your dreams never stop, even after you wake.
The walls were painted with purple and black swirls, and Damien righted himself like he had collapsed in a rotating funhouse room.
Sideways, in the stone throne, was Dream. He cocked his head the opposite way of the turning room and asked, “Damien, what the fuck are you on?”
Damien answered him by throwing up black.
“Fuck, mate.”
Damien’s elbows gave, and he collapsed face-first into the putrid bile he had just expelled. The shame settled in, and he passed out.
Hypnos hoisted him up and took him back to reality. It was hard for Dream to slip through the crack in the wallpaper of the townhome closet while carrying a six-foot-something, muscular, convulsing sack of potatoes. Not to mention, the Netherworlds had a cock-eyed center of gravity compared to Dream. Hypnos struggled to keep them both upright, while adjusting to the vertigo, and battling off the dress shoes and wire hangers. He managed to grab a hold of the coat rack he had put in Loki’s closet for support, but at that point he lost his grip on Damien.
Damien’s head made a loud thud as it crashed against the closet door.
Hypnos grimaced. “Whoops.”
The door opened and Loki stood there, a pipe in his mouth, looking at Hypnos who clung to the coat rack. They both peered down at Damien. Then back up at each other.
Hypnos panicked. “I found him this way. I swear it.”
Loki groaned and took the pipe out of his mouth. He was rubbing the emerging pain from his forehead.
“I promise it wasn’t me,” Hypos urged.
Loki said, “I know. I believe you.”
“You do?”
“Yes, because in a roundabout way... well, it might have been my fault.”
“You mean, it wasn’t my fault?” Hypnos perked up.
Loki shook his head and looked back at Damien.
Hypnos relaxed. “And Thanny thinks I’m the irresponsible one.”
Loki’s gaze snapped back up. “Are we going to leave him on the floor, or...?” The trickster glared.
“Right!”
They picked him up at opposite ends and carried him to his bedroom, which he hadn’t been using. Damien had spent most of his nights on the sofa downstairs.
They laid him down gently on the bed, and Hypnos said, “My brother is going to kill us.”
“Well, ” Loki thought, “in an even more round about way, this is his fault, so...”
“So, we’re off the hook?”
“For now.”
Eros came into the room. “What the hell is going on?”
Loki rolled his eyes, feeling personally responsible. “Damien was probably hanging out with Alec, and-”
Both Hypnos and Eros shrieked in unison, ”What?"
“I’ll get to that later. He probably took something.” Loki chewed on the corner of his lip.
Eros rolled his eyes to the ceiling while Dream thought of what kind of drug would do such a thing. But their quandary ended quickly when Damien began to throw up more black ooze, and they all ran to him to turn him onto his side.
