House Party

[Nesrin Aziz]

Stranger’s hands groped tantalising invitation in the shadows, and thick in its midst Nesrin didn’t reject the touch, but if her own glided a languorous reply against skin it was only to guide it on elsewhere. The power was slippery enough without the distraction. She worked it through the walls, attempting to discover if it might be used to engineer the lights back on. Should the opportunity seem worth it anyway. There were other ways of creating light, but she didn’t want to risk blame, just reap the reward of whatever leverage it might incidentally reveal.

Then there was light, but not of her doing. A glow of flowing colour blossomed, and it might have seemed romantic but for the carnal face it briefly illuminated beneath. She’d seen Nox fighting in the ring, and felt a sting of wariness at the twist of his expression, knowing how much destructive potential dwelt within one man’s skin. Even as she thought it, blunt force knocked her back, stealing the air from her lungs. Flailing limbs around her sparked pain in ribs and stomach; she wasn’t the only one caught in the riptide, and the power unravelled from her grasp as she fell. Her teeth bit hard, and she’d have sworn if she could.

It was as she landed she noticed the edges of a neon glow in her peripheral – a figure fleeing away from the mass of people. Nesrin caught her breath, and as she did so her eyes tracked its path in surprise of recognition, pain forgotten. In certain circles that mask was infamous, the rumours around it strange enough to compel her curiosity, and after a moment of indecision she turned to rise back to her feet and follow – pushing her way over those who'd also lost their balance in the assault, until she was free of the tangle entirely. Nesrin's presence on the darkweb was subtle, but her knowledge of it went deeply. The m’Antinomian were possessed of an almost unearthly skill, and one she had employed on more than one occasion. Bode was nothing if not thorough, in her own protections especially. But while she had the keys to reach them when she needed, she had never encountered one in the flesh. Let alone the one they called the first.

She wasn't entirely sure what she intended, just that it was a thread worth following. Yet bizarrely, for all his haste, when she found him the Emissary was standing beside a wall like a puppet with cut strings. Her approach was cautious, uncertain at first, and yet he showed no reaction at all to her presence – even when she came close enough for those glowing X’s to cast light against the perfect black of her own mask. She glanced briefly over her own shoulder before touching him gently at the elbow. Still nothing. Her heart began a faster beat. A god was what they said, as deluded a belief as that of the Brotherhood, and in the cover of deepest dark, who wouldn’t take the opportunity to unmask a god? He was practically catatonic; it was perfectly and easily excusable under a guise of concern. So her fingers caressed for the seam, searching for a way to tip it from his face.