Men in black suits surrounded a body crumpled in the alley outside of Club Hel. Jewels glittered in the security light, reflecting off a dead woman’s dress as her unseeing eyes bulged from the sockets. A small trickle of blood ran from every orifice. She was fragile and white as a corpse as if all of the blood and ichor flowing through her veins had been drained, the very essence sucked from her body.
The men parted as a menacing figure stepped through their line. He was not the biggest of the hulking entourage, but he carried an essence that would make any god cower. Time faltered, shadows reached, the whirring neon signs dimmed…
It was as if the world held its breath for him.
His dark blonde hair was slicked back with only a few strands out of place. Black business slacks hung low on his waist, tailored perfectly to the long length of his legs, and matched the color on his nails. Tattoos colored his forearms and slipped under the rolled sleeves of his black buttoned shirt.
But his face…
His high, proud cheekbones stood out prominently and added an elegant beauty to damper the cut of his jaw and menacing set of his brow. Eyes milky white as smoke trapped in glassstared down at the broken woman while his face flickered between life and death. Neither here nor there, but stuck somewhere in between.
A man made of both the sweetest dreams and the darkest nightmares.
Nyx stepped from the shadows to get a closer look at the scene. Her body shifted in between planes, the translucency of her skin like static as it projected into the alley. She swallowed as she thought of her physical body lying prone by the bathroom, but shook the nerves. If she couldn’t see what her chaos wanted her to, Nyx wouldn’t be able to go back to her body. Her sight was a curse.
Nyx dropped to her knees and crawled forward to peer through the security details' legs and a small gasp slipped from her lips at the close up state of the body. At the sound, the man made of nightmares looked up and those milky eyes pierced her soul. She froze, every cell in her body refusing to move. A slow, knowing smile fell across his lips.
Nyx was thrown back into her body, lungs gasping for air as she worked to tame the panic.
Hesawher.
How was that even possible?
“Fucking weirdo.” The woman who shoved her stared as if Nyx had the plague.
Nyx fumbled, the vision heavy within her mind.She placed her hand on the wall and used it as a guide from the bathroom hall and toward the cushioned alcove perpendicular to the bathroom. Couches lined either side of the small sitting area with an empty wall at its end. Her harsh breathing filled the space as blood pounded through her ears. The rising wave of panic crested, making it nearly impossible to grasp the calm she needed to work through the situation. Nyx sat in the chairclosest to the back wall and cradled her forehead as she closed her eyes and breathed. Anxiety was a finicky bitch.
She was still being watched. She was still in danger. And she was no closer to securing money for her village, or the little girl waiting for her there.
A whisper of a breeze brushed against her clammy neck and drew goosebumps across the skin. Nyx turned her head and let it cool her brow as she worked to calm her racing heart. Nyx decided she would freshen up and go back to Cupid and his crowd of idiots. At the very least, she could slip some valuables off of them before going home to regroup.
She opened her eyes and prepared to stand, but froze when another rush of air bristled the strands of her wig. Now that she was collected, she realized the chill was rolling off the wall to her left.
“What the…” she murmured as she reached out a tentative hand. Nyx blinked hard and refocused her vision, turning her body to allow light to flood into the alcove from the bathroom. Nyx’s fingers brushed the wall and shimmered like she’d dipped them into a crystal pool. Her breath caught, eyes bulging as she realized what she’d stumbled upon.
“A portal,” she whispered. It explained why Level Lust was the last floor listed in the elevator. The higher up the floor, the more prestigious it became. You had toknowhow to get to Envy, it wasn’t just offered.
Nyx stood and checked her surroundings before placing one foot into the hazy wall. She threw a final glance over her shoulder stepping through the portal.
The secret room was swallowed in shadows as the door closed behind her, nothing but a strand of LED lights on the floor. Nyx took a few tentative steps forward and perked her ears, listening for any sound that would indicate danger. When her senses picked up nothing, she followed the light strands down the hall.
It wasn’t fifty paces before the lights made a sharp right and disappeared from view. Nyx approached the corner hesitantly, but as she peeked around it became clear where she had landed herself. Over a wide archway was a lit sign that read–
To covet is to yearn
To yearn is to desire
To desire is to Envy
The last word flourished and, unlike the other white letters, was lit in neon green. She found the secret door to Level Envy. Nyx crept around the corner and it became glaringly clear how Club Hel defined the sin of yearning.
Level Envy was a hidden layer on the outside of Level Lust.
Suited men stood before large two-way windows cast in the pink light of Lust, their gaze enraptured with the show before them. Some were still as predators, their eyes aflame with longing, while others braced against the wall on either side of the glass rubbing themselves through pristine pants. The bolder of the few stroked their cocks unabashedly in the open. Heat flamed her cheeks, but Nyx tried to adorn a front like she belonged in the room. While most of the patrons of Level Envy were male, there were a few females scattered about which was promising. Maybe she wouldn’t get thrown out on her ass.
There were no lights on Level Envy other than the lazy haze of pink, its patrons left alone to envy in the dark. As Nyx stepped cautiously down the hall, she found her eyes lingering through the viewing windows. What she saw was carnal.
Every room held one or more daemon in various phases of pleasure. She stopped and watched four men bury their cocks wherever they could find an opening with their two female companions, their mouths open in silent moans.
