Four days later, Adelle was sitting in her office. She'd finally gotten Steve on the phone, and was savoring the disbelief in his voice. "That's right," she said. "Sold. At our asking price. Yes."
On the other side of her desk, Damon Petrovich smiled and raised an eyebrow.
"He's taking possession today. And, Steve? I quit." She smiled. "...Yes. Well, yes, I suppose I did get a better offer, but mainly I think it's time for me to move on, maybe do some traveling. Emily can keep things in order for another day or two; she has access to your calendar, and she can email you if anything serious comes up. You may be a bit busy when you get back, but I'm sure you'll survive." She paused, listening. "No, Steve. I'm really quitting. Right now, in fact. It's been nice knowing you."
She hung up the phone before he could reply, and turned to look at Damon. "That's it," she said, and took one last look around the room. It felt strange to be here; the chair was far too large for her, and the phone felt comically oversized in her hand. She hopped down from the chair and came around the desk; her eyes were level with its top. It was very, very strange to look at the world from down here.
Her flesh rippled, a line of darkness running up her arm before she got it back under control.
Damon slipped off his chair and offered her his arm. "Shall we?"
Smiling, she slipped her arm through his and walked with him out the door.
Cool! It really makes me want to learn more. I mean does Damon ultimately end up being a good or bad being?
ReplyDeleteThe ambiguity was deliberate, but I've long been fond of the idea of monsters who are not blameless or "just misunderstood", but who aren't wholly, deliberately malevolent, either. That's tied in with a mess of other thoughts -- the Tuatha De Danaan of Celtic legend, who were later referred to Sidhe, or fairies, were said to have first arrived in "splendid flying ships". What if something like that actually happened? If something almost-human, or able to pass for human, came to Earth from somewhere else? Or, what if a group of human beings got stranded on an alien world -- one with lighter gravity, say, where they'd be stronger than most of the native life-forms, but one where a lot more sunlight reached the surface, forcing them to limit their activities to the night? What sort of stories might they leave behind, and how close to some of our vampire stories might they get?
ReplyDeleteThe connection between Damon and Adelle has less to do with either of them being particularly good or bad, and much more to do with both of them being... out of place, outsiders, prisoners of a world that really isn't their own.