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The voice grunted somewhat on the other end, some eerie crackling could be heard.
"I want to talk to Tom Sullivan," the voice snapped.
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Dark hallways
Julien’s face was coarsely serious. The lights reflecting of his facial features that spoke of acrimonious discontent. His stubborn grip remained iron-cast around Carly’s arm.
His crimson eyes were boarded by the frowning brows as he stared back defiantly. He recognised the weapon indeed. Perhaps not seen it in this form before, but certainly the power it could wield was once a damning dissension for him, an ancient time ago in history.
“Perhaps I should take pleasure in the fact that I annoyed you so much, that you felt the need to show your true form,” he grinned subtly, accentuated canines showing. He gradually lowered the suspended Carly cat to the ground. Before folding his arms to stare at Jess. Smug curiousity glistening through his eyes as he raised his head to look down on her.
He did note the brilliantly lit blade from his peripheral vision, but any signs of fear towards the talisman was rendered obsolete by his predatorily inquisitive look. Almost like a mountain lion considering to take on a wounded grissly bear four times its size.
He was cursing in his mind. The suppressive control he had had on Carly was waning. He knew it was due to that forsaken light that was emanating from the angel.
“You know my name by now, cleary…” he turned to pace up and down, prowling like a panther. The cold footsteps echoing against the clinical floors. All the while, he kept his guard up to watch for any signs of the Nephilim making any advancements. He could easily evade. Any moment he wanted to. However, he didn’t want to end the show yet.
In any case, he suspected at this point that she cared more for the kitten’s safety. After all, whereas he imagined her kind were more likely to ‘turn the other cheek’, his motives were more inclined towards vengeance. If there was something to be gained at the time given.
Carly supported her body with her palms against the floor. Risking a look towards the devil as she gritted her teeth wearily
“…I failed to catch yours… perhaps you could enlighten me?”
He stopped to a standstill. The unreadable expression practically set in stone upon his face as he studied the ethereally radiant angel.
“Does it begin with a ‘J’ as well?” he encouraged “because to me, you like a… the merchant of Venice.” He deliberated as he ran the words through his heads and spoke them out loud.
“You’re a Jessica, aren’t you?” he announced with mocking enthusiasm.
There was silence. Julien knew he was right. Carly turned her head to look at her saviour- looking to her for confirmation.
“So near but so far, Doctor Summerfield- rather like my entire experience of you to date. Try 'Jessaphael” Jess answered him indelicately. Carly’s eyes widened.
The lights dimming somewhat despite keeping them on call.
“Clearly not just a profiler and a pretty face. There’s been so many talents I’ve noted about you since I set foot here. Swift reflexes, parkour dynamics, supernatural speed…”
Julien looked on as the list continued.
“Teleportation, ability to change environmental settings, summoning a suppression field… and that touch of yours is very unnatural.”
The amethyst beast simply sniggered, before shaking his head as if she was a troublesome child. The sinister turbines of airvents could be heard echoing down the hallways.
Carly risked another look at Julien. The revelations she was hearing her stripping her face to disbelief.
“One of the more powerful Lurkers?” she pronounced the last word poignantly.
Julien looked down at Carly who he had noticed by now, was observing him. He could tell she was unfamiliar with the true nature of what was going on in this world. It was hilarious, really.
“What would it matter to you anyway, weren’t you going to kill me with your ‘sword of the divine’ earlier?” he said with a tone that was emotionless but well spoken.
“I have to relinquish my reservations- I honestly didn’t expect a supremacy of true damage could be crafted into a wielding weapon.”
Jess found the message in Julien’s statement to have a polarising effect.
“You won’t know anything hiding in the dark like you do, Julien,” Jess retorted to Julien’s 2nd statement “as for inviting me to cease your existence… that’s really not the response I was expecting.”
“Are you afraid?” the doctor asked, a widening and narrowing of the eyes. The tone in his voice was haunting- even against the light that had offered so much comfort to Carly.
Even with that saving grace, her teeth were chattering whilst the atmosphere continued to feel like an abyss of cold gravestones.
“Is there a catch?” the cat asked meekly. She sounded like a little mouse.
Jess gave Carly a mildly surprised look, whilst Julien smirked. Showing half an arch of upper teeth.
“That would depend,” Julien proposed, taking out a spare rubix cube from his pocket
“After all, what seems important won’t last forever.”
’What is it with him and rubix cubes?’ Jess thought arbitrarily, before considering his cryptic statement again. The way he was turning all the faces amplified much more loudly than what was natural.
The first thought that crossed through Carly’s mind were her parents. So fragile she realised life was when they had their existence snatched away by means unknown to her to this day.
“What lies behind the smoke and mirrors, Julien?” Jess reiterated Carly’s question. The building’s ventilators could be heard humming eerily again which was coupled with dripping water pipes.
“Whatever you perceive, Jess.” Julien replied, turning his head to crack the muscles in his neck, before spinning the rubix cube on one of his index fingers “what do you think keeps the world balanced?”
The question was met with silence from both Jess and Carly. It was ambiguous to the point where it almost seemed that Julien wanted to spell it out to them. Still, any clarity was not surrendered at this point.
“This is some pub quiz,” Jess remarked, feigning an impressed tone “is there more than one answer to this?”
“Perhaps.” Julien hinted, abruptly snatching the rubix cube turning around the mosaic facets again “I’ll spare you poetic talk on good versus evil, life versus death and the whole balance of nature altogether. Because I exist for much more specific purposes which, involve more than culling civilian kind.”
Jess gave him a neutral look.
“Go on then. Enlighten me.” Carly’s worried brow turned from Jess, and back to Julien. His blood well eyes looked so ravenous and eerie.
“Since I have crossed to this world, I have entered people’s lives through their offerings. Their moods, emotions, and weakness. I’ve exaggerated the pleasure of sin while minimizing the true nature of the outcome of sin. I have lead them astray. Withdrawn them from what they once believed was true. Until they have turned to me. In turn, I have made them mine,” Julien explained, a wry smile on his face.
“If you kill me, which I don’t think you have it in you to anyway, you kill all of those I live within.”
Julien threw the rubix cube forwards. The projectile sailing swiftly passed Carly and Jess, blowing strands of hair aside... before toppling and tumbling against the floor. Each thud a resounding echoe.
“I’m sure not even your heavenly telepathic abilities can gather the sum of civilians that have fallen to my beckoning. However, they've sinned so perhaps it would be within their own interest and their loved ones to relinquish their existence anyway. The earth destined to be made forlorn. ” The last words with perishing intervals of rejoice.
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