814 The Detective’s Domain

Irene’s house smelled humid.

Tantalizingly humid.

Like stepping inside and being sprinkled by the misty vapors of a hot spring, except without the hot spring, or the vapors. Just this pleasantly addictive aroma that kept tempting me to take bigger and bigger whiffs.

Really, there was no other way to best put it.. the entire place just reeked of her, and for one brief heated second, I seriously debated on packing my bags and permanently changing my home address.

Irene had spotted me doing my best golden retriever impression as she led the way inside and just simply moved on with a sorta dismissive, impartial look – boys will be boys and all that.

I’m telling you if Irene was ever feeling in an entrepreneurial mood one day, I guarantee she’d be the world’s first quintillionaire just selling air fresheners out on the street. And of course, the secret formula would have to be kept a trade secret.

Hell, I’d take a hundred alone.

But despite continuing to be bombarded by an overwhelming dose of ‘Le Parfum Succubus épicé No.1’ I didn’t let that distract me from the fact that I’m under her roof and not the other way around for like the first time ever since she knocked on my shabby apartment door once upon time ago.

So naturally, I took in all and as much as I could of her humble abode – and humble it was indeed.

.....

“Big place..” I muttered, giving my neck a rigorous exercise, twisting about.

“Had to be,” She said, continuing to lead and speak like some kind of curator in a museum. “I need good ventilation, plenty of room – I’m not really made for indoor living, you see. Too small, and I’ll risk drowning myself in my own pheromones again. And we don’t really want a repeat of that, do we?”

I kept quiet, deciding to keep far away from that rhetorical, and continued on venturing only to realize sooner than soon that there really wasn’t much to actually venture toward.

Her house was.. kinda empty.

Her walls in the plainest white, not even a single picture, or painting, or any kind of framing to fill in the empty space. No potted plants to spice up the monotony. We entered the living room, and it was like a snippet taken straight out of a catalog.

Everything, from her shelves barely containing anything, to her singular couch and table facing a television mounted onto the wall permeated this simple elegance that also simultaneously felt so hollow.

I was beginning to think that nothing in this house has been meddled with since she first took up residence here however long ago that was.

Granted, it was still a home, definitely.. but it was a home that wasn’t so homely.

Except for one saving grace, that is. I noticed in a second, closer look, connected loosely and left haphazardly, sat a little karaoke machine right beneath the mounted television, and its packaging sitting recently unboxed by the side.

I faintly smiled, and Irene spotted me doing that too.

“A promise is a promise, isn’t it?” Irene hastily said, despite me not even saying anything. “Besides, I know what you’re thinking.. the living room needed some sprucing anyway. It’s all very conveniently timed.”

I kept smiling. I kinda wanted to hug her, for fun – but I don’t think she’d much appreciate that. Might just end up tazing myself from her touch instead.

“Anyway,” She cleared her throat. “This isn’t what you’re here for, so don’t you even think about it.”

“Not yet anyway,” I muttered.

There was a noise, a clanging from the corner down deeper into the hall, and I promptly followed Irene into the kitchen where we wound up stumbling upon Sera standing hunched over rummaging around in the yellow light of an opened fridge door.

“Alright, that’s going to be a little annoying,” Irene said, her arms in a disapproving cross. “Does she do that often at your place?”

“Mm.. almost every night, according to Adalia,” I replied.

Sera slowly stepped back, her baggy sleeves gripping onto something small, and oddly-shaped, and also very red, and very gold.. not to mention strikingly familiar to boot.

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that distinct red-gold shape before.

“Hey! No!” Irene suddenly snapped, flinging herself immediately around the countertop toward the purple burglar, like a toddler with their hands caught in the cookie jar. “Don’t touch that! That’s not for you to be eating!”

Sera couldn’t react in time to at all put up a fight when Irene swiped it from her hands – but her brows did annoyingly furrow, having been denied a seemingly scrumptious snack. But compared to the glare Irene had on her.. simply put, that was an official UFC staring match she wasn’t winning.

“You’re allowed anything in the kitchen except for this,” Irene slowly and firmly said through pursed lips, putting the shapely glimmer of red and gold back into the fridge with a rattling slam. “And don’t you even dare try for even a bite when I’m not looking – or I’ll make sure you regret it.”

To my absolute reeling bewilderment, Sera complied. Albeit, grudgingly, growling-ly, but nevertheless, she went along with it and didn’t put up a fuss at all. With the how and why I chalked up to a woman’s scorn. Guess even for a necromancer, that kind of damnation ain’t simply worth it.

“Now you, and also you -” Irene snapped her eyes back toward me. “- keep close to me. I’ll show you where you’re both supposed to be.”

A short trek across to the other end of the house later, Irene shuffled us into a small, secluded room.. and it was here that I started to feel like I just traversed through the doorway of a not-so-distant past.

The blinds were closed, the lights were shut – by all accounts of reality’s rule, there should only just be darkness – yet even so, it was as if the glow of an early dawn was a permanent fixture of the room.. burning faintly, pulsing tenderly.. with the slight, pungent smell of cindered fabric.. a slumbering, pale figure laid upon the crisp, crumpled sheets of a bed.

Ria was just as I remembered her.. or maybe not quite.

The flaming locks of her long, crimson hair smoldered just as enthralling as before.. her pale skin lighting embers that strayed across the cold air remained the same mesmerizing sight.. but then this quiet, this deafening silence of hers.. I just can’t seem to ever get used to.

I tried to recall the last time I’ve seen her smile and it was a little alarming how murky that sight was to me. Then I remembered her final words echoing in my head, the pained, weary look on her expression, that fading luster in her crimson eyes.. and it was scary how vividly I could see that instead.

“She’s dimmer in the winter,” Irene said, stepping closer to the foot of the bed when no one else moved. “Not usually this dim, though..”

“Still dreaming..” I mumbled uselessly. “It’s.. being trapped in there.. it’s not killing her, is it?”

“It’s an eternal sleep. It’ll pretty much kill anyone without any intervention,” She said. “But for Ria – for someone immortal – to her, it would just be a very, very nice long dream. Lady Enstar cannot claim her.”

Then her shoulders slightly sag, her head fell to a slant, and a deep, brooding sigh escaped her.

“Though I wouldn’t put it past Ria to wish that she could somehow.”

Sera stayed the furthest away, standing far back like some kind of unassuming amenity belonging in a corner.

“So what do you need her to do?” I asked, glancing back at the hooded, purple furnishing right behind me.

“I’m not sure yet,” Irene replied, still deep in somber though. “Something useful, I hope.”

“Okay, let me reword that – Irene, what are you trying to do here?”

“A few days from now we’ll be celebrating Ria’s birthday,” She looked at me, her expression an unreadable blank. “Once a year. Doesn’t come around often..” and she sighed again. “And really what kind of birthday would it be without the life of the party?”

historical

So – what?” I raised my brows at her, my thoughts swirling an array of scenarios by her implication. You want to infiltrate her head yourself, celebrate it with her there?”

“It’s an idea,” She nudged her head. “Among many other ideas I have in mind.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” I said, making sure the concern in my voice was loud and clear. “Before you said – you told me it’s dangerous. That everytime I try, I’m risking my life.”

“Risking your life, yes,” Irene said. “But that is not what I’m trying to do. I won’t risk mine. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet, but..”

“But?”

“But she promised to always stay by my side,” Irene said finally. “A promise is a promise.. and I fully intend to make sure that she keeps hers.. one way or another.”

Ria softly blazed heedlessly. Blind to the world, deaf to every word. Yet every moment, she looked as if she was about to spring awake at any second now.. but ultimately, she never does.

Because she never wants to again.

“I need to sort out a couple of things,” Irene promptly declared, turning away from Ria. “Sera, your room is opposite this one, we’ll start tomorrow. And as for you – ” once again, she whirled around at me, one foot already outside into the hall. “Stay as long as you want. Come see me when you’re ready to go, I’ll see you out.”

And with a final somber look into the room, faintly illuminated in a burning red, Irene quietly closed the door, and with footsteps fading gradually – she had gone.