Abbie

Hilde remained until the final participant in the hunt had departed, then she sealed the environment. Carrying the golden cage as she walked back to her car, her cell phone rang. Clarissa provided very explicit instructions. Returning to the building, she constructed two blank rooms separated by a two way mirror. Each room was featureless and gray. The room on the mirrored side of the glass possessed a table and two chair. A single light illuminated the room from the ceiling. Setting the cage on the table, she awaited the arrival of her mistress.

Clarissa arrived back at the holding where the environment used in the hunt had been constructed. She smiled at Abbie as she got out of the car, “Your view was probably a lot different on the way out.”

Abbie nodded, closing the passenger door.

“Inside we will enter into an interrogation room. You will be able to see your father. He will be with Hilde, my assistant. This will be difficult to hear, and I know a lot has happened, but I want you to free yourself from him, see him for who he is. He cannot see you,” Clarissa said. Facing the glass, she nodded.

Hilde reciprocated the gesture. Pivoting in her seat, she turned to the cage. “During your interaction with Clarissa, you said you possessed little regard for your progeny. What of your children?” Hilde asked.

He turned to look at her, a snide expression on his face. “You wish to engage me in idle chit-chat?”

“I’m just trying to fathom a man who views the world from your perspective,” Hilde replied.

“Do you possess children?” he asked.

“No,” she replied.

“Then let me enlighten you about children. They are a waste of effort. William is an utter disappointment, vain and arrogant, with little value. Abigail is a vapid cow. Samuel is the only one with any promise, unrealized as it might be. Nevertheless, each is no more than a squirt of seed that could just as easily wound up down Lorraine’s throat as in her cunt,” he replied dispassionately.

“What if I told you, by fortunate circumstance, Abigail is still alive?” Hilde asked.

“That then would be a testament to the ineptitude of your little coterie, rather than any action undertaken by my Abigail.”

“Harsh words,” commented Hilde.

“I am told there is potential in Abigail,” Hilde added.

“Did you know that pregnancy complications killed my wife Lorraine? Abigail had to be cut from her dead mother’s womb. I always knew that made her chaste blood special, valuable, but talent? Hardly.”

Hilde nodded. “Blood such as that would be imbued with certain benefits to one schooled in the arts, or to her, should she chose to pursue an education in the arts.”

Samuel scoffed. “She doesn’t have the disposition for it. Her only value would be as a sacrifice or a brood mare for selective breeding. I will confess I am surprised the stupid little creature survived,” he acknowledged.

Hilde looked to the window. Clarissa nodded.

“I think you’ve said enough,” Hilde stated. Rising from the chair she opened the cage and removed Samuel. She set him on the table before taking the cage away. At the door she paused, “I commend you for not pleading and bartering for your life, but you are an asshole.” She closed the door behind her.

Samuel smirked.

Tears streamed down Abbie’s face listening to her father speak so caustically about his only daughter. She fought so hard to gain his approval, a gesture, a nod, something to validate her, but he had always been so aloof, distant, now she knew why.

“I did not bring you here to torture you, only to open your eyes to the man that brought you forth into this world. What little regard he had for you. I also want you to know he no longer has any power over you,” Clarissa added.

“I want you talk to him,” Clarissa said. Abbie nodded and Clarissa led her to the door of the interrogation room.

He looked so small and vulnerable to her, standing on the barren table, nothing to hide behind. He just stood there, small and insignificant but posture full of hubris. Abbie closed the door behind and approached the table.

“Father,” she said softly.

Inclining his head, “Abigail,” he replied.

“It seems you have done well for yourself. What did they offer you to betray me, some pretty ribbons perhaps?” he accused, voice sarcastic and full of derision.

Abbie frowned. “I was inside a girl’s stomach waiting to be digested, I never betrayed you,” she defended.

“And yet here you stand in all your vainglory. I would expect such from William. I suppose you are quite pleased to see me diminished thus,” he sniped, spreading his arms.

Sitting down at the table, Abbie placed a hand to either side of her father. “I take no pleasure from your situation, but I do want to know if you ever loved me,” she said.

“Love you? Now you mock me,” he chastised.

“Did you ever love me?” she asked again, this time more softly.

“No,” he replied matter of fact. “I had affection for your mother, but you robbed me of her.”

“How can you be so cruel?” she asked, eyes spilling over with fresh tears.

“Stop wasting your tears you silly girl, be done with whatever it is they have sent you here to do,” he said, a scornful look on his handsome face as he glanced toward the giant mirror.

Abbie snatched him up in her right hand. “All I ever wanted was for you to love me!” she yelled, squeezing him tighter and shaking her fist slightly.

“Better that you had been digested in that girl’s stomach and shat out because you were never worthy of my love.”

Abbie pushed herself to standing with her left hand and brought him near her face. “You have no idea what it was like, waiting to be dissolved and digested,” she said loudly, gently shaking her head.

He waved his one free arm dismissively at her, as if he no longer cared to participate in the conversation. “Be done with you, I’ve no further,” before he could finish, she stuffed him in her mouth and hastily swallowed him whole, feeling him move down her esophagus. She slumped back into the chair, placed her head on her arms and began to cry.

“That was a little bold,” Hilde commented to Clarissa behind the glass.

“I needed her to have this closure. I wasn’t sure the depth of his hold on her,” Clarissa said before joining Abbie in the other room.

Wrapping her arm around the trembling girl’s shoulder, Clarissa said, “He was too wrapped up in his own personal pursuit to recognize your talent. We will teach you to harness that magic.”

Abbie sniffled. Leaning back, eyes red from crying, she stated, “I wish to learn.”

Clarissa patted Abbie’s stomach. “Now he will learn what you went through.”

Abbie nodded. “I don’t think I would have made if not for Jack,” she admitted.

“Jack?” asked Clarissa.

“Jack Dalton, we were together in that girl’s stomach. He said it was our meet-cute story,” she chuckled, able to appreciate the humor in it now.

“I’m sorry, Jack didn’t make it,” Clarissa said, offering a sympathetic look.

Abbie’s eyes welled up. “He said he was hurt bad, I guess coming back up was too much for him,” she said, bottom lip quivering.

“What do you mean, coming back up?” asked Clarissa, puzzled.

“You know,” she said, putting a finger in her mouth to mime inducing vomiting.

“He came out with you?”

“At the apartment. When the dark haired girl took him out of the toilet, he was face down in the water, but I didn’t know he had died,” she said, choking back a sob.

Clarissa looked at the mirror. Hilde shrugged. Turning back to Abbie, Clarissa said, “There are going to be a whole lot of questions surrounding recent events so I’m going to send you with Hilde. She’ll help you get prepared for the difficult road ahead. Not just with your tutelage but the legal ramifications of your father’s affairs.”

Getting up, she left, the look of determination in her eyes burned green with intensity.

Invisible

“Jack Dalton,” was all Clarissa said standing at the door of Angelica’s apartment. The resolute look on her face brooked no argument, closing the door behind her, she walked in and sat at the table while Angelica vanished into the bedroom.

Angelica re-emerged with Clare in tow. Clare carried a small folded cloth in her hand. Gently, she laid it down on the table in front of her mother.

“How were you able to conceal him from me?” Clarissa asked, tone firm. She pulled back the folded cloth and looked down on the slumbering tiny naked man.

“I have not mother, I swear,” pleaded Clare, exchanging glances with Angelica.

“Which of you girls were in on this?” she asked.

“Clarice, Angela, Angelica and I all made arrangements to try and get him out,” confessed Clare, knowing better than to try and lie.

Clarissa looked down upon him and frowned. She was looking right at him, but every other sense she possessed, magical or otherwise said they was nothing there. Reaching down she prodded his chest with her right index finger.

“How is this possible? How are you hidden from my magic?” she asked of little slumbering form, before looking to the girls.

Clare shrugged. “We are not doing anything,” she said innocently.

“It’s not us,” added Angelica with a quick shrug of her shoulders and a look of innocence.

Clarissa waved her hand over his sleeping body. His left forearm began to glow white. At first a slow smile spread across Clarissa’s gorgeous face, then she began to laugh out loud.

“What is it mother?” asked Clare, not understanding the sudden mirth.

“That girls is a protective sigil,” she started, pointing at the luminescent mark on Jack’s arm. “One belonging to Garth if I’m not mistaken,” she finished, voice bordering on jubilation.

Neither of the girls had ever met Garth, but they both knew who he was, they all knew his name. He was like Clarissa. A being of immense and ancient power. He had been called many things throughout the ages but mostly trickster or mischief incarnate. It was a divine chess match, played in perpetuity between the gods and goddesses of old. Except for Garth, he lived outside the Covenant, the divine consensus agreement, not bound as all the others. He moved with impunity, taking particular delight in taunting goddesses. No matter how hard the female deities tried, they could never capture him, never even getting close.

The feeling she and Angel had felt was him come to deliver this sigil to this mortal man.

“But why would he mark Jack?” asked Angelica.

“Why indeed?” asked Clarissa. Folding the cloth back over him, she rose from the table. “I am taking him.”

“As you will mother,” replied Clare with a head nod.