She had a visceral disgust of walking so casually among the mundane people in their mundane cities, but this time she made an exception because of the expectation she had unwittingly heaped on herself.
It took a little bit of magic, a little bit of scrying, and the subtle control of allure to track the movements of some of the members of the X-Men and trail them until they unknowingly revealed the location of the man responsible for the recent explosion of resources. In her defense, it was a very poorly guarded secret. Other than the nondescript cars and normal clothes they wore, there was barely an effort for secrecy.
If hiding in plain sight was the tactic they were going for, then it was poorly executed.
Selene Gallio, The Black Queen of the Hellfire Club, strolled through the disgusting roads of the deep boroughs of the city as she made her way towards the small shop that had become the rising pivotal point among the stations of power in the world. Normally, she would have teleported right inside instead of subjecting herself to such disgrace, but not only she couldn't, she had lost connection to any of the thralls that she had sent into the shop. Complete and total lack of control. She could entrance them after leaving but she had no way of controlling them the moment they stepped past the threshold.
The place possessed some kind of barrier that she couldn't sense that blocked all sorts of interference from outside sources – teleporting, telepathy, mind control etc.
So here she was.
Shaw was still in the club, making plans and schemes, and writing a preface for the next ally he was about to betray, as men of his stature loved to do. For a man with ambitions like his, he was too predictable. But that was also why she accepted his proposal and hung around him in his club – as he had stressed one time too many in her presence – to see how everything would end for him. So far it has been a most productive use of her time.
Shaw still remained oblivious to the location of the shop, or even the fact that a shop was what he should be looking for, but that never stopped him from scheming.
A frown twisted upon her black painted lips as she stood at the entrance of the shop. It was normal. It felt normal, so mundanely normal that she almost doubted herself for a second, despite its drab name. She knew that there was supposed to be a ward here that rebuffed her attempts to open a portal inside the shop, as well as most external connections, but none of it was there.
There was no barrier, magic or otherwise, that provided the shop protection. There was no way she wouldn't have felt it if there was.
The frown shifted away for a sensuous smile. How intriguing. Here was to see if it warranted the effort she spent.
She walked in with the gait of an Empress who had spent her entire life being at the top of whatever hierarchy she put herself in. The smile on her face as she crossed the threshold would have sent a lesser man to his knees. It expressed the kind of danger that was worth giving up a life for.
She slowly sauntered down the shop, between the rows of shelves, as a perfectly glossy long black nail traced over the shelves she walked by.
There was something so rich in the air that tantalized her senses. It wasn't the purity of the air, though that too was something quite refreshing, instead it was something that tingled over all her senses and yet eluded interpretation by all of them.
As she suspected, her magical connection to Nova Roma had been sniped off. It wasn't an absolute severance. It was more like a no-invites-allowed. The connection was there but she couldn't draw anything from it, neither could it supply her anything. And yet the deficiency that was supposed to be there due to the disconnection was absent because something else had taken its place, all without her knowledge and consent.
Lesser men and women alike would have assumed hostility from the forceful shepherding, but not her. All it did was intrigue her even more. The power to do something like that was tantalizing and it whet her appetite.
And what were these little trinkets? The interior décor could use some work, but there were some fancy little things that simply teased her interest.
"Oh, how simply delightful." She picked up two skulls that sat on a sheer veil on one of the shelves and was pleasantly surprised when she realized that her magical senses weren't as suppressed as she thought. If anything, it wasn't suppressed at all, which meant that the things she couldn't read were things that simply ignored her perception.
She took the two skulls with her, a scheming light in her eyes while her sensuous smile languidly danced around.
The coiled golden staff with seven entwined serpents and seven gems in their mouths, radiating a level of necrotic and dark magic that she had never witnessed before tempted her greatly but she held herself. The despair that clung to it almost painted an illusion of an undead lich in her head but her mind easily saw through it.
It was almost as if this little section of the shop was made entire to tempt her into avarice. She was greedy by nature, but the type of greed the shop was trying to induce on her was simply exhilarating. Now she was more interested in whose wonderful collection was this, and how quickly she could turn them into her thrall.
The wind blew in her favor as she saw who was probably the owner climbing down from a ladder, and also the hideous sword he had hung up on the archway.
"Oh, excuse me." She raised her brows at the casual address. "Sorry, I heard you entering but as you can see, I was in the middle of putting that up."
The smile remained on her face as she wondered if she was wrong. She was not. If he was even magically adept, he would sense the dark magic rolling off of her, and where most would be careful in their address due to that knowledge, his casualness almost suggested his ignorance. Almost.
The skulls in her hands barely drew his eye, nor did her appearance.
"Seems like you already know what you're looking for. I'll leave you to it then." He patted off the dust on his clothes and pointed to a section of the entrance where she'd walked past. "I'll be at the counter if you need any help."
Was it arrogance or ignorance, she wondered. She had no plans of letting him go either way.
"Stay." Her voice came out as a soft order, promptly arresting his motion and earning her a curious look. She sauntered around him and ran a finger along his shoulders, her gait seductive. "Quite the interesting little place you have here. Tell me, how did you come about these little delights?"
"Why thank you," she chuckled at his sincerity. "Junk 'N Stuff prides itself in its consistent quality and authenticity above all else. Everything you see here are genuine articles I obtained in different manners of trade in my recent years of travels."
His wording kept her smile. The fact that she couldn't read anything from him deeper than the surface level made her grin.
"A magical savant. How ambitious." She purred in his ears and his only reaction was a chuckle that was half sheepish and half delighted.
"Among other things."
"And the nifty trick that guards the shop?"
"You noticed?" He seemed almost surprised she did. "It's one of our basic services to our customers. While it may seem pervasive, I assure you it's not. It basically protects everyone inside the shop from outside influence of any kind. And if the interference is of vital importance, or any level of importance really, to the customer, while the shop will still prevent the influence, it will provide a suitable sustenance for free for the customer for whatever duration they stay inside the shop until they leave. I assure you once again, the system is only there to protect the authenticity of customer individuality."
Oh she noticed. Definitely. She wasn't burning through her reserves of siphoned vitality ever since stepping past the threshold.
"On the contrary, I'm quite interested in what it is. Mind helping a poor lady out?"
"I'm terribly sorry but I can't do that. Shop secrets, and revealing it would be going against Union policies." He apologized.
Her eyes went around the visible parts of the shop, while her mind wondered about what those mutants had done when they came in.
She wanted to ask about it but it seemed her little friend was quite eager to please.
"If you need something that provides a similar help, I can help you with that. Whether it be of the magical or technological variety, my shop provides options that'll give you similar effects."
"You'd do that for me? How lovely." She held onto his arms and easily followed him as he walked her through his shop and gave little explanations about anything that caught her eye.
"Some of them are really expensive, doubly so if you're looking for something that you can wear on your person. The materials needed for the rituals and the talismans are, frankly, despondent. That's why most opt to just make a sanctuary. It's cheaper, and provides a stable safe zone, so to speak."
She nodded as she thought over his words. The knowledge for a ritual like that would require an equally buoyant sacrifice, like all ritual magic tends to be.
"And what about these two? I feel like they're a bit more than decorative pieces." Her magic had been trying to seep into the skulls since she picked them up but so far she hasn't had any level of success. It was as if her magic couldn't access anything deeper than surface level while she was in the shop. Frankly, this kind of magic was terrifying. Sanctuary was a fitting word.
Isaac, as she had come to know him by, took only a cursory glance at the skulls that she held towards her bosom. She couldn't enthrall him, nor did her allure or subtle enchantments worked. She figured he was already aware of what she was doing but wasn't calling her out on it. She would have taken that as a sign of something working had this been any other situation, but with him she simply didn't know.
He picked up a book on dark magic as he replied to her.
"The Skull of the Sorcerer Who Would Not Die," that was the blackened skull in her hand that felt as if it contained a trapped consciousness. "The owner trapped himself inside it in hopes of coming back to life one day. He was a sucker for the dark arts and he was plenty knowledgeable, so there's that."
Ah, a fellow who detested death. And one that was knowledgeable in dark magic. She smiled. She had just found who would be the next addition to her sea of souls.
"And this one?" The other polished skull with a jewel in its head shifted up her hands as her fingers poked through its eye sockets.
"The Jewel in the Skull is a very powerful artifact that grants a person access to the Ghost World, an astral plane of secrets, spiritual forces, and equivalent risks."
"Is that so?" She looked down at the skulls in her hands and the beautiful scheming looks in her eyes returned. At least she did a better job than Shaw at masking it and, in the event of someone seeing through it, making it aesthetically pleasing.
She had already gotten the gist of the nature of the relationship between Isaac and the X-Men and the Brotherhood. A trade.
How simply magnificent.
Her arm remained linked with Isaac's as he walked them back to the counter. All that remained was knowing Isaac's nature. Knowing that would be the key to understanding why those two groups kept to a peaceful trade instead of simply taking what they wanted.
"And how much would these two cost?" She asked jokingly.
"Not as much as any of these books. They are not exactly cheap, but they are not on the expensive end either." He easily answered.
"Oh don't tell me you're angry about my earlier probings. Surely you can forgive a lady her curiosities, can't you?" she leaned fully on the counter, causing her black dress to pool enticingly low on her shoulders. "How about as a gift to the start of a lovely relationship?"
"Sorry Miss, as much as I would love to, I can't do that. Shop policies." He said with a strained smile. "You can pay in installments if you want to, but you'll only receive the item upon full payment."
"So what will it be?" Her eyes narrowed the slightest in irritation as he made the books disappear. It wasn't the display that pricked her, but instead what the action meant. Without speaking, dismissing the books in her face was as if he was telling her that if she couldn't purchase the skulls then she had no business inquiring about those books. What a politely arrogant man.
"And how much will these be?" She still didn't know what he was, a human sorcerer or a magical being, but she was starting to have an understanding of the principles of his existence.
It was a theme with frankly ridiculously powerful beings. They were restrained by higher power and consigned to particular roles if they wanted to keep interacting with the lower worlds.
Hell Lords, Elder Gods, Celestials, Eternals, even Gods – they were all consigned to specific roles in the universe the moment their existence evolved past a certain level. It was also the same with races like faes, dwarves, demons, sprites etc.
She doubted his nature involved an inclination to trade but so far she hadn't seen anything otherwise.
—The Skull of the Sorcerer Who Would Not Die (The Magic Goes Away) – The animated skull of a sorcerer who cast a spell upon himself so that he could not die. His consciousness persists within the skull, offering knowledge—and danger—to anyone who wakes him.
*An old master in a ring— skull. Eh, it's all the same.
Price: $27,660,000.
Both skulls disappeared from her hands and appeared on the counter with little tags on them.
—The Jewel in the Skull (Skelethrone: The Chronicles of Ericona) – A legendary artifact that allows the user to enter the Ghost World. Sought by those who wish to uncover truths hidden beyond the veil of death.
*A Ghost Buster's wet dream.
Price: $72,000,000.
She looked at the price and back at Isaac. Her magic threatened to rise but the easy reminder that as easily as he and his shop could sustain her magic, they could easily put a stop on it. The thought did not please her.
"And how do you suppose we trade? I don't do much with hard currency." That was a lie—a harmless one.
"In any currency, gold and precious stones. Items of equivalent worth. Anything of worth is accepted as currency in this shop. I'll advise against using souls however as their worth isn't as… buoyant when it comes to exchange rates. It fluctuates wildly between individual souls."
She smirked at that. It was as if he had read her mind. While she did not trade from her sea of souls, she understood that they were more of a fuel source than currency. It was simple economics. The supply was easily accessible, reducing its value.
"And magic scrolls?" she asked.
"Those would suffice, as long as they are of net worth. Their appraisal however will be decided by the shop, and it will ensure the value and price of the items." Isaac patiently explained while Selene kept her eyes on him, her fingers lazily tapping away on the countertop.
At the end, she simply smiled and slid over her card to him. Greed was the reason. She decided it was better to exchange currency than for her to part with any of her materials, especially when she was yet to figure him out.
She had expected it to take some time but the processing had been instant as Isaac simply slid back her card and snapped his fingers, causing the tags to disappear.
"Thank you for your purchase. Junk 'N Stuff hope you return soon."
She laughed. Her senses were no longer restricted to the surface level on the skulls the moment the payment went through. "Oh love, you'll surely be seeing me soon. I believe our relationship going forward will be… exhilarating."
She sauntered out of the shop with skulls in hand, and the moment she stepped past the door, her perception bloomed and instantly marked the skulls.
"Well well well, who do we have here?" She licked her lips as the darkness in her eyes grew. The skulls in her hands rattled, sending euphoric thrills down her spine.
She looked back at the shop, and this time the Greed in her eyes was no small hidden thing.
"I'll be back. Soon." A portal swallowed her into black smoke in the middle of the street, hidden from the minds of the ignorant passersby.
––––––
.
Patreøn*com/1stDepth
.
––––––