False Wraith in the Silence [Adele/Rayneh]

[Ryan D'Alteau]

Strap in, hold your breath and hang tight!
Known for the big-dollar bet in a cage fight!
You're playing with the sharks, step inside.
Everybody on your mark, get set! Now let's ride!
______________________________Celldweller - "Shapeshifter (feat. Styles Of Beyond)"

Ryan D'Alteau. Even now, after he and Adele had got back from their honeymoon and finished getting all of their identification documents amended to match, Ryan was still struggling to get used to his new surname. As they'd often done in the past, he and Adele had seen fit to buck tradition when it came time to settling on their wedding. They'd held the ceremony on a beach overlooking the Mediterranean, invited less than three dozen guests and had elected to excise the usual religious trappings of such a ceremony from the proceedings. With Adele often describing their bond as spiritual, referring to how close their abilities allowed them to be, having Khalidah Rahal do the honours had been... fitting.

Having already discussed the matter in private and arrived at the conclusion that neither of their surnames sounded right when worn by the other, the couple had decided to adopt an amalgamation of both surnames in unison and, after explaining why, it had quickly stuck. That was, of course, until the time inevitably came for him to introduce himself to somebody. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd had to stop himself from saying Alcroft and correct himself. Inwardly, he was saving face by imagining that his wife was having the same difficulty. It was doubtful, but it was a glimmer of hope he was going to cling to until otherwise instructed.

Although Adele hadn't really agreed with him when he'd brought it up, mostly due to her own day-to-day life not really changing all that much, Ryan was sure that their lives had quietened down ever since they'd settled back into their beachside condo. Although he was still getting money funnelled into his bank account from his connection to her, it felt as though Maurelle Lacroix hadn't called him and requested his services in months. The Company had, as ever, left them well alone and even mentions of Dakari Johessman's Jamaican Dominion had withered away from the journalistic limelight.

"...hey, Ryan!"

It took him a second or two to realise that someone was speaking to him. "You're daydreaming again?" With nothing else with which to take up his free time, Ryan had set about looking for work again. It was something he'd been doing on-and-off for years but, in the past, he'd always been beset by something that saw fit to put his plans on hold. More often than not, it had been work - whether for the Company, for GEIST or for Maurelle - but all of those reasons had had something in common. They hadn't been what he would have considered normal. In actual fact, there was very little in his life nowadays that anyone would have considered normal, but he'd strived for it nonetheless.

"Yeah, little bit. Sorry." To that end, Ryan had got back in touch with Halcyon Hospitality, a well-respected catering organisation who worked out of various high-end venues across the country. During his last round of jobhunting, Ryan had scored a place on one of their recruitment days, during which he'd been put through his paces in what they'd called a service trial. By way of an earpiece he'd been wearing at the time, he'd been directed to perform various duties; anything from helping the "diners" to the table when the event had begun to bringing food out and being on hand to dispense wine when required.

For someone who hadn't appeared too refined despite cleaning up nicely enough, the organisers had been reasonably impressed with how he'd conducted himself. Being the only British guy in an environment slightly reminiscent of a modern-day Downton Abbey - or an exorbitantly expensive charity dinner - had obviously given him some kind of advantage. While they did offer him a job, the amount of time they'd taken assessing everyone who had taken part meant that he'd been too busy to take them up on it at the time. Rather than close the matter there and then, they'd given him a phone number and explained that they'd keep the record of his performance on file, regardless. They apparently saw it prudent to keep a list of suitable candidates, just in case their personal lives allowed them to change their minds.

Which Ryan's had. And, within a week of calling them back and explaining his availability, they had given him the address of the nearest location their staff were based - an opulent function hall on the outskirts of Harlingen - and a time by which he was asked to arrive. Although looking like a place where conferences and other such events were only sporadically held, the building had recently become a high-class hotel/restaurant and, seizing the opportunity to expand, Halcyon had swept in to cater (quite literally) to the restaurant side of the business. While he'd definitely felt it, the uniform with which they'd supplied him ensured that Ryan at least didn't look out of place.

"We've just got done serving the main course." Having collected his measurements the last time they'd met him, the tailored black pants and waistcoat and white shirt fit him perfectly; about as much as his wedding suit had. The black bowtie that sat at his collar was something he personally despised, however. But he'd endure it, if only for the paycheque at the end of the month. "We'll need you on wine duty at least until dessert, okay?"

"Easy enough. It's all set up in the same place again?"

"Yeah. The system we've got going backstage rarely gets changed. If ever." In the parlance his colleagues used, backstage was just a colloquial term for everywhere the waitstaff was permitted to go during a dinner service that wasn't the kitchen or the dining room itself. It allowed them to navigate around the outside of the dining room without being seen and, especially for larger-scale events, approach any of the diners from anywhere. It was like the tunnels beneath Disneyland. "Good to know," Ryan replied, flashing a brief smile before heading off towards the kitchen.

Since he'd started working for Halcyon, Ryan had always been posted to the evening shift. The only time he'd ever seen the people who worked the day shift was when he arrived at work at four PM, when they were gearing up to head home. It had been nearly four hours since he'd got changed into his uniform and he was only in the middle of the second scheduled meal of the shift. A large group of high-ranking businessmen from a Japanese technology firm was set to arrive after this, whereupon he would be expected to go through the various motions all over again.

It was hard work, putting up the façade of a refined, perpetually polite waiter but, strangely, Ryan was actually enjoying it. Maybe, he thought, it was because his somewhat submissive mindset lent itself rather nicely to the subservience, but that was a line of thought for another time. A time preferably with no-one but his wife in sight. With the main course for this group being some expensive cut of steak, he wasn't at all surprised to find bottles of red wine lined up, ready for the staff to take into the dining room and serve to the guests, just as they'd been trained to do.

With one hand sitting gently beneath the bottle while the other held it by the neck, Ryan waited for a break in the line of similarly-tasked staff members before heading out into the guest-filled room with them. For all these years, he'd been accustomed to Adele working late. It was going to take a while to get used to the fact that he now did the same.

[Dakari Johessman]

—— Paras ——

Busy, busy, busy.

So much work to do, so much life. Always moving about, always trying to accomplish something. Why bother? Why worry? Why put in the effort when there was always someone nearby, willing to put in the effort themselves?

Granted, this one had not been an easy mark. He had a funny accent and his days did not always follow the same routine. It was almost as if he had done this before. Had someone tracking him. Had built up some kind of habit, some response, subconsciously, just in case. That part had been tricky. And maybe it was just that, the challenge and the threat of being discovered, that made Ryan D’Alteau’s life look interesting.

This was the space that Paras occupied. Without a sense of being of their own, without an identity to latch onto, they took to finding other people who looked interesting, studied those people, and then replaced those people. Sometimes they did it for money, sometimes for revenge. Mostly just for the hell of it.

At the few points in their life when they were caught and institutionalized, they became known as “the parasite,” due to their ability to simply slip into lives unnoticed. They could shapeshift perfectly into any human being. They could pick up on mannerisms and nuances instinctively, and could fool just about anyone. They could even mimic the abilities of Specials, although this required an understanding of the ability. But they had been working up and up their whole life, perfecting these little skills, and they had it down to a silence.

They had been placed in prison eighteen times now, in fourteen different states. They had been placed in psychiatric homes and simply walked out, mimicking one social worker or another. It was all part of the thrill. They could be anyone. Anyone could be them.

Paras looks like the guy you passed on that sketchy corner on your way home earlier today. You don’t remember what that guy looked like? Exactly. Paras’ normal appearance is so unremarkable that you don’t look at them twice. They don’t leave an impression at all.

Paras had a birth name and a gender and an age, but none of that mattered to them. It’s part of some identity that they inhabited and then shed long ago. Instead, it lives in the moment, finding lives that appeal to them, studying the owner of that life, and then replacing that owner. They play the part until they get bored. Then they move on.

When Paras finds a life they like, they make sure to dispatch the previous owner of that life. That’s how Paras got caught previously. They aren’t very good at tidying up crime scenes. They are very efficient at the dispatching part, though.

Occasionally, infiltrating a life requires some micro-inflitrations along the way.

“…system we’ve got going backstage rarely gets changed. If ever.” Those words almost made a smile creep up on Paras’ lips, but they were able to quash it. At the moment, they were the supervisor at Ryan’s catering gig. It was only temporary; the real supervisor was alive and well, enjoying an extended bathroom break. Laxatives are a hell of a drug.

“Good to know,” the mark replied, flashing a brief smile before heading off towards the kitchen.

That was all Paras needed. Ryan would be at work for the rest of the evening, serving hors d'oeuvres in a goofy black bowtie. People formed little routines, such as that “system” that Paras had been able to learn after watching it for only two nights. But now Paras was headed off to the next part of the trick. Ryan could finish his compromisingly repetitive day job. Paras had elsewhere to be.

The car had been a difficult part to figure out. It was too fancy and too custom for Paras to find a duplicate of it on their budget. So instead, with duplicates of Ryan’s identification in an identical wallet, Paras headed to a nearby luxury rental car lot. Along the way, they transformed into him - a perfect copy, note for note, cell to cell, of Ryan D’Alteau.

Having obtained the rental, Paras took Ryan’s usual route home. The wife’s schedule was a bit more difficult to pin down, given that she was a doctor and worked long, varied shifts. But Paras thought he’d gotten a bit of a sense for it. She would be home, he expected, and would hardly think anything unusual of Ryan having crashed his car and driving a rental for now.

As the car pulled up to the unusual home, Paras scanned the area for anything unusual. But nothing appeared out of place, so he proceeded indoors to meet the woman of the house, Adele D’Alteau.

[Adele D'Alteau]

You take the credit while others do all the work
You like to think you discovered them first
But we all know you moved in after it was safe
That way you know you could never get hurt
(You like to play God)

You don't believe what you write
(You're an imposter)
______________________________Oingo Boingo – Imposter





†††
۵ ۵ ۵

Babylon
Saint Padre Island, Texas

The cloying scent of myrrh and cloves wafted down from the top floor steps. A handful of other smells, more flowery and pungently herbal, as well as an aroma of burning, dry rattlesnake skin completed the bouquet. Smoke could be seen wafting outside the room and winding its way down the stairs. In the middle of the room in a recessed area of the floor which she’d had custom built was a fire pit surrounded by a large circle of black sand which she’d had imported from Vik’s Beach in Iceland. In front of the fire pit at the far wall was a black basalt statue of the goddess Sekhmet which she’d bought at an estate auction. She had no idea whether it came from one of the ancient Egyptian dynasties, or whether it was crafted out of the ebony-coloured rock by a more modern sculptor, but she immediately felt drawn to it the first time her eyes fell upon it.

The statue was flanked on either side by a torch and was adorned in red silk garments and gold trinkets. A glass of red wine lay at the statue’s feet, surrounded by pebbles of red agate, raw garnet, citrine, and chunks of amber. Two pots filled with dirt and growing papyrus reeds stood stoically beside the large black statue of the lioness-headed goddess. There was a large, open skylight directly above the altar to allow the room to be flooded with natural sunlight during the day, and also to vent the smoke from the flames.

A large terrarium (which she affectionately referred to as La Boîte de Mort, or “Deathbox”) constructed of two inch thick plexiglas took up the majority of one wall and was filled with an array of beige coloured sand, chaparral, and desert plants. A small radiator located in the centre of the rear wall of the cage provided sufficient heat, and constantly adjusted itself to maintain an optimal temperature for the creature that slumbered within. A UV light ran the length of the top of the enclosure was on a 24 hour timer which mimicked the strength of the sun throughout the day. During the slightly cooler winter months--not that it ever reached dreadfully frigid levels on the Gulf of Mexico--if it was necessary, she would hook up an additional small heat lamp on one side of the box.

The front panel of the 9’ long cage was made of two separate pieces of plexiglas, the bottom piece which was welded to the rest of the enclosure, and the top piece which had hinges at the top and opened upwards and outwards when unlocked and pulled. This made it relatively easy for her to reach inside and clean the terrarium when needed. The outer edges of the front of the Deathbox were lined with a series of locks--four low profile locks across the front, and a latched padlock on either side which connected the movable portions together--and for good reason. Inside the rectangle of bulletproof glass was one of the most venomous creatures in the entire animal kingdom.

The snake was coiled up and sunning itself on a large, flat rock in front of the cage’s radiator. It had required the greasing of more than a few palms to obtain the black mamba, considering that the state of Texas did not allow its citizens to own such severely venomous animals, and to have one in her possession was illegal. As it was, she was the only one who could safely handle it, as she was capable of controlling its circulatory and muscular systems so that it remained docile. Most of the time she didn’t have to remove the snake from its protective plexiglas cocoon, even when she needed to clean or add more substrate. This was where she retrieved her dried snake skins whenever it shed.

Adele sat quietly opposite the statue of Sekhmet, staring into its black basalt eyes with her own. Viewing it through the haze of dancing flames in front of her almost made it look as though the effigy was a living being. She reached into the pot beside her--which was full of dried herbs and snake skins she'd collected--and tossed a handful of the mixture into the flames and watched as it smouldered and burned, eventually becoming thick, grey smoke. Ambient, binaural music played lightly in the background, inducing her into a state of trance.

This was her off-time. With Ryan working a relatively spotty schedule which barely matched hers, she had much more time to focus on herself and build her own strength. Today, however, she felt somewhat weak. She knew she was exhibiting the tell-tale signs of anaemia. While anaemia was a disease most normal people could counteract via a change in diet and taking iron pills, coupled with her haemophilia, the symptoms were magnified. She found that by sitting in her shrine--her sanctuary--she was able to draw power from somewhere.

Once she came out of the trance and returned to her body, she knew that she would need to administer a clotting factor treatment downstairs. Even though she could have found a godsend who was a healer who could rid her of the genetic disease, it was so much a part of her life that she felt getting rid of it would have caused her to lose a large portion of her identity. Her disease was what had given rise to her power, after all. If anything, it was a blessing in disguise, and sometimes she needed to be reminded of that.

The sound of the hydraulic door hissing open was sufficient to bring her out of the trance, and the darkness receded from her eyes as they adjusted back to their normal blue-green hue. Adele slowly got to her feet and cinched closed the ankle-long, floral printed, silk bathrobe with its matching belt before exiting the room, dragging with her a billowing cloud of the earthy-scented smoke in her wake. She receded down the two flights of stairs and walked into the downstairs bathroom just off the kitchen where she kept all of her medications. Her clotting factor treatments she kept in a tacklebox along with an orange biohazard container for all of the spent needles and other unsanitary items.

Once she was certain that she had everything in hand, she made her way into the kitchen and sat down at the solid oak table, facing their patio which overlooked the bay. She opened the tacklebox and felt a familiar . . . and unfamiliar presence behind her. “You’re home early.” Her voice, with its vaguely French-sounding accent, was muted and delicate as she addressed him. Sometimes Ryan returned home early from work due to a client cancelling at the last minute.

She turned around in her chair to see who Ryan had brought back with him--probably a friend from work. But when she looked behind her, only Ryan was there which was . . . odd, she thought. She “felt” two distinct presences. Her face gave no insight into her emotions and she returned to setting up her supplies on the table. “It’s probably for the best. I’m not feeling too well this evening--might take myself across the causeway to the emergency room if I don’t feel myself clearing up in the next few hours.”

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

† Word count: 1568
۵ Outfit: this
† Other: Incense