The Red Wing Mansion

The Pearl Wing Mansion : Chapter Two

I run back into the mansion.

I storm through every room, opening each door until I find his bedroom and connecting office on the second floor at the height of the stairs.

Claudius is in the middle of a call, in the present day.

But I have some god damn questions.

I stand in the door, glaring at Fontaine as he looks at me and quickly ends the business meeting.

"What, darling?" Fontaine cocks a brow, looking positively menacing. He probably thinks I'm mad about the public spanking earlier.

"You didn't tell me this mansion is haunted," I point to the floor, "With your sister's murdered husband – who you killed!" Claudius did not expect this confrontation, nor this topic. He's flawed for once. He blinks as if fighting to remember something so distant yet so horrifying, "...it's like you've just forgotten that you've broken your sister's heart..." I accuse him as I can't hold back a scoff and more tears.

I turn and slam the door as I storm out and I see Pearly at the top of the stairs, looking at me with betrayal in her eyes.

"I told you not to say anything," Pearly says, mortified.

"Somethings are best said, what happened here needs to be... fixed," I open my hand, looking around, "Is there anyway we can bring the past, forward, your man, forward to our time, or... go back into the past?"

"Alix," Fontaine opens the door, but he doesn't sound angry. He's calm and understanding, looking at Pearly, he hesitates and finally addresses me, "Spellman died a man. He's long gone."

"But he haunts the grounds –"

"Have you seen him?" Claudius asks me. I stop and shake my head.

"But –"

"What's done is done... I am sorry," Claudius looks to Pearly, "Are you still hurt? I will give you the world to heal what I did in that time."

"All is fine, I was just making conversation about the history of our home," Pearly explains, curtly, "Alix... please, drop it."

"I just wish..." I whisper my pain, "I wish I could make it right."

Claudius can't keep a serious expression, as he looks at me and he remembers me, at the Red Wing, with him.

He gives off a crooked smile, unable to hold it in, "...you're a sweetheart, Alix."

"Nothing can be done?" I ask anyway.

"Nothing," Pearly is certain, "I accepted it."

"Anything else you need, now?" Claudius uses a different tone.

I nod, "Actually yes, on an unrelated note – I'd like to speak with you alone, please."

Pearly takes herself away, still looking hurt that I betrayed her wish not to run right to him.

I knew she was demure and submissive, but I couldn't let it slide. It was horrendous and I still believed it to be so.

It still doesn't sit right in my heart.

I walk back into Claudius' office and bedroom. It's much nicer than the Red Wing. More grand, more open, more light – higher ceilings. It's harder to appreciate knowing how it was acquired in the first place.

Fontaine stands by me as I pivot in front of him and I reach out my hand, clasping his one gloved hand as I hold it up between us.

"I have a request, Fontaine," I ask this, as I had been thinking about it earlier and now was a better time than ever, "Kamy, Ethel and Florence. Your three Subs. They need to go," I ask this staring at his tie, "Please. You have me... Sir. I'm enough."

Fontaine weighs up my question seriously, when I had expected a quick reprimand.

"Alright. They'll go."

My eyes swing up and I catch his dark blue eyes, soft while accepting my request, "Thank you, Fontaine."

"You're my top priority, you always will be," Claudius admits, "...anything else? Besides the mention of Spellman?"

"Why?" I whisper this, "Why did you do it..."

"Truly?" Claudius seems both reserved and humbled by his own past, "I became immortal to live forever. That man... he enjoyed being a man. Just a man. I guess I was threatened that he'd take my sister away forever, to her death in old age."

"That's what growing up is all about, and falling in love," I murmur, "Fontaine... you silly incubus."

"I couldn't help myself back then – but I can now. It's to do with the demonology of being what I am. Every sin is a daily fight. You are my daily sin," Fontaine's gloved thumb runs over my knuckles, "I let you in. We can touch. Occasionally. Alix. I wanted to speak to you over a private dinner about this... perhaps you can wait for me to prepare that, darling?"

"Oh, you were... was that what you were doing on the phone before?" I ask with a deep blush blooming on both my cheeks.

"Mm," Claudius Fontaine can make me melt with that one deep and affirming noise, laced with bad intentions.

"I'll leave you be for the rest of the day, sorry for interrupting you, My Sir..." I test out being good and before I can run off, Claudius grasps my chin with his ungloved hand. Contact. Warm and cool, deathly desire. Both feelings at once. I fall forward into the trance as Fontaine kisses me quickly – sending dark magic swirling through my blood like a perfect storm.

A perfect promise for later.

I jump back and he pulls away at the same time, letting me run away.

Fontaine's eyes were hungry, he doesn't want me to leave.

But he makes room in his cursed mind for logic, and I make room in my heart for patience.

I gulp as I leave his study and quietly shut the door.

Just like that, my anger is subdued as I come back to the present reality of the situation.

The history was abhorrent, especially for Pearly... but they had all moved on.

It was now a non-issue.

Besides, there was nothing I could do for a ghost of a man.

Unless of course...

...was there a corpse?

Tiffany and Rudolph may want to share with me – how exactly one changes a dead person, into a vampire.

My mind runs with possibilities.

Things I should leave well alone.

But I can't.

I just can't.

Pearly.

At least she deserved for someone to try.

It's not like I had to tell anyone about it.