Gilded Intentions - 1.6

Before The Storm

 

 Later that week on a cold but sunny Wednesday afternoon, Kiren and Adette were playing pool in the rec room to pass some time.

Since their last outing, Jasper hadn’t allowed anyone to leave the mansion and everyone was beginning to feel the walls closing in around them.

“How about I bet you twenty I can sink at least one ball with my break?” Adette piped up as Kiren absentmindedly checked the rubber stopper on the end of her pool-cue.

She looked up quickly. “Wha... oh... ok, why not. Make it fun.” A small smile showed for a moment.

Matt, who was usually missing in action, seemed to be right on their heels today; he had been down in the kitchen when they’d gone to get their morning coffee and at lunch when Kiren had gone to make some pasta and now he was in the rec room with them.

He seemed determined to master creating a new drink at the moment, and since the rec room was the only room with a bar, there he was again.

Adette took her shot making the white ball crack loudly against the others, she sunk two.

 

 

“Lucky shot.” Kiren chided at her as she took another shot, and missed.

“You still owe me twenty simolians though...” She half sang at her as Kiren lined up her shot and sunk a yellow ball.

“True, whenever I get my hands on some money, I’ll pay you back.” She stuck out her tongue laughing a little.

Kiren had almost lost track of how long she had been at the mansion, but putting the months together, she gathered near three months or so had gone by judging from the season changes.

 

“Ladies, I think I have it... come and try it for me?” Matt called from the bar as he poured out his new creation into glasses for them to try. He seemed very pleased with himself.

Putting down their cues, Adette and Kiren wandered over and each took up a glass.

“If this is crap my silvery blooded dear, you are in my bad books... for a day.” Adette teased Matt as she took a sip of the drink. After a moment she nodded and smiled. “Not bad at all babes, it kind of tastes like raspberries and chocolate.”

Matt smiled at Kiren took a sip and she nodded as well.

“Different but nice all the same, you could do something with that.”

Mat frowned for a split second then covered it with a smile and short laugh.

“Already will be, there’s a costume party this weekend, this will be the signature drink.” He glanced past them out the door as he drank what was left in his glass with one gulp the spoke slightly softer than he had been. “Just... don’t drink it on the night though.” He then hurried out of the room leaving Kiren and Adette to finish their drinks.

“Your boyfriend is so weird.”

“Not my boyfriend.”

“Ok, friend with so many extra fun benefits then?” Kiren teased Adette giggling slightly as she sipped at her drink.

Adette pursed her lips, and then smiled as she thought to herself. “Many my dear... oh, so very many.”

They both suddenly stopped realizing how they were speaking to each other. They looked at their drinks, then back at each other, their eyes slightly wide in horror.

Putting the drinks down, they headed for the kitchen to make some strong coffee.

 

As the coffee was brewing, Kiren went and sat on the couch thinking for a moment, she then smiled and got Adette who was standing near the coffee machine to come and sit next to her.

“I know what it is; it’s a soothsayer’s elixir...”

“A what?” Adette looked slightly confused.

“Didn’t you ever go to those little village festivals in your younger first centaury years? Well, even if you didn’t; there was always a soothsayer somewhere selling elixirs, these men or woman would mix up all sorts for people. Truth potions, love potions, poisons and anything else that you wanted as long as you gave them a piece of silver or two.”

Adette furrowed her brow for a moment then leaned against the column.

“Ok, so that drink that Matt’s made up is what, a ‘Tell me what you really think as if you’re sixteen’ elixir or something?”

Kiren gave a mixture of a nod and a shake of her head.

“Yes and no. I’ve seen it before; if I’m correct it‘s a ‘Truthful opinion elixir’. It’s an oldie, but a goodie none the less.” Kiren took in a deep breath letting it out steadily. “Nobles used something similar during times of passing edicts and what not. But this could work for us, and I’ll need your help, but it’s now or never. Go get the drinks, quickly.”

 

Just after dusk, Kiren had checked all over the house to make sure that Jasper was still out. Melanie seemed to be out as well, shrugging off the weird feeling; Kiren gave Adette the signal to make her move.

Adette casually slinked into Jaspers office to find Matt at work by his cauldron.

“Hey you; what-cha brew’n?” The drink was having the desired effect, but Adette had also been mindful and mixed it with water, so it wasn’t as strong still giving her some control.

She half startled Matt, but he managed to finish off casting before giving her his attention.

He seemed to have been expecting her arrival and wasn’t fazed as she slunk over to him and leaned on the wall and rested a foot on the edge of his usually ‘untouchable’ cauldron.

“Just perfecting my creation, seems like you’re enjoying yourself though.” He leaned on the wall by Adette; she lazily looked at him and sighed with a slight smile.

“I am...” She gave a small giggle as instructed by Kiren, then pushed off the wall and put her arms about Matt’s neck. “Why don’t we add a signature to your brew?” She smiled coyly at him.

 

Without a moment to even think about it, Matt had picked up Adette, she wrapped her legs about his waist and let him balance her on the edge of the cauldron.

“Well, you know we shouldn’t but...” Matt had begun to protest, but Adette had begun to caress his face with her fingertips and gently kiss his eyelids, down his nose and lips. “Ah to hell with it...” He gave a short wave of one hand, Adette gave another girlish giggle as her hands moved down to his waist and her fingers begin to swiftly and expertly undo his belt.

 

Kiren had been waiting outside for her queue, on seeing the quick flash of light from the window, she smiled taking in a deep breath of the chilling night air. It stung her throat but felt good.

With a careful glance around she lazily began to stretch, as she did so, she allowed her magic to swirl inside and outside of her body and was lifted off the ground by it; for the first time in what had felt so long she felt free and as if she was made of cotton candy. Rolling her wrists she felt her magic energy surge even more as if she were a dried out well being refilled during a flash flood.

 

At the end of her stretch she turned to make sure that her work had come out right on both side of the fence line, with a small smile on his lips, she folded her arms nodding to herself. It was subtle but she was sure it was going to do what she wanted it to and hopefully not be noticed by Jasper any time soon.

Feeling pleased with herself, she felt her magic fade as she dropped gently back to the ground and went back inside.

 

As she went to go upstairs, she smiled hearing Adette still occupying Matt in Jasper’s office, then she heard a slightly muffled voice coming from the sitting room, the lights were off which made her curious. She went to see it was her imagination or not.

The door was already open and Kiren leaned on the frame as she saw that she wasn’t imagining the voice, it was Reiss and he was talking to someone on a phone in a hushed tone.

“She’s very powerful and we’d be stupid not to. She’s already put a plan into motion with Adette tonight, I just saw her a few moments ago using her powers outside...” Kiren cleared her throat and saw Reiss stiffen. “Uh, I gotta go, I think I have some explaining to do.”

He sighed heavily as he ended the call.

“You’ve got outside contacts and you’ve been spying on me just so can use my powers? What the hell are you doi...!” Kiren had started to yell but was cut off.

 

In a moment Reiss was in front of her clamping a hand over her mouth and putting a finger to his own lips.

“Just shut up and listen, I can explain.” He spoke quietly and shut the door carefully with a foot. “Yes, both Adette and I have contacts outside, we’re...” He glanced past her into the hall through the glass then looked at her again. “We work for Moonlight Falls Special Ops, for the past three years we’ve been trying to find solid evidence to nail Jasper and with what you’re doing; you’re either about to ruin all our hard work... or be the vital nail we need to put him away for a long, long time.”

For a few moments, Kiren stood absorbing what Reiss had said.

 

She moved herself away from his grasp, her eyes narrowed as she turned away opening the door with a fierce pull.

Reiss grabbed her arm as she began to walk out the door. “Please Kiren...”

She glanced back at him feeling her anger for him grow and spoke through clenched teeth.

“If I were you, I would let me go. The last thing my father taught me was how to banish someone; that someone was found wandering the Al Simhara Desert mad and half dead eight months later.”

“But Kiren, I couldn’t...”

“Reiss let... me... go, right now.” Her arm slipped out of his grip as she stormed off upstairs.

He cringed as he heard the door slam upstairs.

 

It wasn’t long after that that Adette came out of Jasper’s office which gave Reiss a chance to speak to Matt before Jasper returned.

Reiss moved quickly as Adette disappeared upstairs.

Shutting the office door behind him, Reiss went and sat on the side of his usual chair watching Mat as he seemed to be finishing of the final touches to a brew he was preparing.

“What’s it this time?” He acted casual and waited for Matt to finish what he was doing even though he wanted to take Matt by the throat and strangle him for the countless abuses and blackmail that he had witnessed Matt have a hand in.

With a satisfied nod Matt turned to Reiss.

 

“Not much really, but I know it works a treat. I gave some to Adette and Kiren earlier as a test with some liquor.” He gave a small huff of satisfaction. “Had Adette eating out of my hands for the past hour, she was acting like a giddy horny teenager.”

Reiss nodded giving a seemingly impressed eyebrow raise. It seemed that the disappearance of Matt’s family wands hadn’t stopped Jasper from trusting Matt’s ability to still use his skills to do Jasper’s behind the scenes dirty work.

“Nice, guess it’ll work well at the party then. Need any help setting up?”

Matt shook his head. “Nah, I was just gunna go make sure the hidden mics and cameras were set up properly one last time then head to bed.” He grinned again. “I am defiantly going to have to remember to keep some of that brew aside for Adette; hey, did you want some for Kiren..?” His grin grew broader.

With a slight shake of his head Reiss gathered to himself that Kiren wouldn’t be speaking to him, let alone touching him for a while.

“Nah, Jasper’s been favouring her a lot lately, you know how he gets.”

Mat nodded beginning to leave. “Don’t I know it, well, see ya later.”

 

As Matt left, Reiss quickly picked up the voodoo doll from Jasper’s table. He made sure Matt was well on his way out the door before he got to work swapping over the small lock of hair and nail clippings that were in the doll with others he had dug up from an old grave. Carefully pocketing the now original hair and nail clippings, he gave a small satisfied smile.

 

Reiss then left the office himself heading to the bathroom to flush the contents of his pocket; the voodoo doll was back in place, like it had never been touched.

 

The party Matt had mentioned was on Saturday night.

Again, most of the guests were selected council members that Jasper had kindly invited and being none the wiser, they all happily drank the ‘exclusive’ cocktails provided and played right into Jaspers’ waiting claws.

Kiren couldn’t help but keep a watchful eye of Jasper as he kept his own eyes on each and every person that drank Matt’s drinks.

Everyone was having a great time, even a journalist had been invited so that she could report on the party, and she also seemed to be drinking a bit more than everyone else which Kiren knew Jasper would use to his advantage as soon as he could.

Lots of conversation flowed freely as did the drinks; soon enough people were loudly saying what they really thought of others that weren’t there with laughter and impersonations.

Thankfully this party wasn’t one that Jasper seemed to need any of the girls at, so one by one, Kiren, Adette and Melanie all slunk off to bed while the party raged on into the night.

 

By the time Kiren woke up, she was thankful to hear that the mansion was as quiet as an empty tomb.

She went downstairs and made some coffee, after having one of the coffee’s she made she looked in the fridge for something to eat, she wasn’t feeling very hungry but since her appetite had been so slight over the past few days she knew she needed to eat something.

“I don’t think the fridge knows how to make anything, even if you stare into it.”

Reiss had come up behind Kiren and startled her, she spun about shutting the fridge door, seeing his face made her angry and as her anger grew, so did her magic which swirled about her lifting her off the floor slightly so she was looking down at him.

“Impressive, but you might want to keep that under your hat; unless of course you’ve found a way to disable those still magic bound rings from pumping poison through your veins.”

She rolled her eyes and scoffed at Reiss as she stopped her magic from flowing. “You’re a piece of work you know that, can’t you? Be a little bit happy that I actually managed to do something useful that might actually get us out of here or are you having fun here?”

 

To her slight shock Reiss got mad at her, he slamming her up against the fridge holding her hands above her head so she couldn’t do anything, he put his face close to hers so he didn’t have to speak loudly.

“Don’t you dare think that I don’t hate what I’m doing and what I’ve done while I’ve been here; weren’t you the one who just the other day told me something similar, huh?” Kiren blinked in stunned silence at him, her eyes locked with his, her heart was pounding in her ears. “You might be a few thousand years older than me, but your age has done you no favours in the intelligence section of life it would seem.”

 

Kiren pushed Reiss off her in her own anger.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you’re disgusting. No better than any other of your kind, vermin feeding off others misery to get what you want and be damned the rest of us.” She slapped his face as hard as she could; her breathing had grown faster in her renewed anger.

Going to walk off she was stopped again by him as he was quick to stand in front of her.

 

“Why can’t you see I’m trying to help you, but you want to be so damned angry at everyone for what’s happening you’re going to get yourself killed before you can do any real good?”

Kiren pushed past ignoring him and stormed back upstairs, even though her stomach was hurting slightly from her still being hungry.

 

Coming into the bedroom Kiren was faced with Adette leaning up against one of the bed posts silently staring at her, Melanie as usual of late was nowhere to be seen.

“And I thought I was the only one who could hit that hard, nice going.” She smirked at her.

“Oh, yes and I really want to talk to you right now, agent.” Kiren snapped. “Here I was thinking you had a thing for Reiss, that sort of complicated I could deal with... but no it had to be a whole other sort of fucked up.”

Adette gave a short burst of laugher and shook her head.

“Well, at least now you know why I stopped you and Reiss and why was apprehensive about your plans. But so far so good, for now. Pity you never got into the force.”

 

Kiren slumped down by the footstool feeling stupid and suddenly overly tired. Adette came and sat beside her giving a half smiling sigh.

“You know, you really shouldn’t be mad at Reiss, after all we both kept it from you but we had to. Ever since you mentioned Melanie acting weird, we’ve begun walking on egg-shells.”

“Yeah but he... we... you know...” Kiren looked past Adette.

“Ah... right, but you can’t hold that against him, come on. If he didn’t do as Jasper asked of him, our cover would have been blown. Besides, he said...”

Adette stopped as Kiren shook her head frowning.

“You don’t have to say anything, it’s already more complicated than I ever this would be. I’ll stop being mad at him.” She sighed shifting slightly. “So, how are we going to sort out this mess then?”

Adette smiled giving Kiren a wink.

As she was about to speak but the sound of a truck backing up pierced the silence of the morning; Adette and Kiren looked at each other then scrambled to get up off the floor and see what was going on.