The Empty World | The Empty World Sequence [complete | rewriting]

Twelve (this scene will move to a later chapter)

She kept saying they should get some Halfangels as security.

But, she knew the Vampyres couldn't hurt her. The United States of North America was part of the Union of Darkland Nations; there was one set of laws for all. You couldn't murder. Most of the Darkling didn't seem to care, when they could buy blood in every grocery and drug store; even some of the newsstands sold it, along with the soda in their small refrigerators.

Cinnamon came in through the back entrance in her plain clothes. She screwed open a small Coca-Cola bottle, as she sat down. Opium was sitting before the mirror, on the dressing table. She'd added a white streak to her hair; it looked sinister horror! She said she expected Morpheus to visit soon, and looked to the glass over her shoulder. She said she had seen Joy out in the audience.

"She's here?" Cinnamon had asked with shock.

Cinnamon hurried to get dressed, standing at the wardrobe racks fastening a black corset with velvet cups. She wasn't as well endowed as the real Velvet, but no one seemed to care. It was the general build of the body, the Anglo-Indian features that somehow matched those of Velvet, most of all it was the way she moved when she was out there, and the fact that her voice was as good naturally as Velvet's was after the blood.

Someone came to the door. He was a pretty boy, tall, slender, blond...he had amazing dark-blue eyes, and features she couldn't quite place. Opium knew him. She explained very quickly that this was Joy's recent boy, implying there had been many others before him. Opium called the boy John.

John said, just like everyone did, that Cinnamon looked just like Joy, and just like everyone, he said when she'd thanked him, "What sort of accent is that?"

There was hardly time to shove her legs into fishnets, pull on a tulle skirt and ankle boots and run out to the stage.

Opium looked over her shoulder.

John began talking at her. He was afraid of her, obviously. That meant he knew what her ability was. John knew that, if he looked her in the eyes too long, he'd see himself the way he really looked, whether he was ready or not.

Opium calmed him down.

John stood there and told Opium that he had been in New Orleans when Joy had had another of her strange fits, her spells. Her Claire's Horrors, as Athen had always called them, though John didn't say this. He stood there and accused Opium of knowing all about Joy, that there was this strange maybe imaginary Daniel she kept looking for and there was a brother, Mandy or something like that. He accused Opium of refusing to help her friend, her friend whom was slowly going mad.

The boy knew an awful lot, of course he explained he'd only put this all together lately, and that some of it Opium and Morpheus had told him themselves when they appeared in his dream.

Opium glanced over her shoulder.

Opium sighed. She let John know what parts he'd gotten right. She said there was nothing she could do about it, not right now, but maybe sometime Joy could know what she was, maybe. In the meantime, since John knew so much of it, he ought to guard her, to make sure she never got so close to her twin again, or that something bad came of it.

She looked at John. It was not his real name. It was the name Joy had given him, which Opium thought strange considering his real name was Danjel Weiss-Poznanski; Joy was usually predisposed to all Daniels. Opium didn't hurt him, didn't hold his gaze. She just told him he'd better get back to Joy.