Perdition-Last Chance [Open, but you MUST read the OOC before hopping in]

[Drobabes]

Her body hurt in so many places, and everywhere it touched the futon stung. The only thing that felt good was the after waves of pleasure, and his hand on her hair.

'It isn't over. It's only just begun.'

With her cheeks still flushed, she gave him that small smile again. She wanted so badly to reach out and touch him, and briefly the cuffs made a clank as she tried, forgetting they were still on. She quickly gave up and let her head rest on the fabric, and after a moment she looked past him to the bottle of rum.

"I don't want any more alcohol, if that's ok. It will just numb me..."

She wanted that clarity again. That adrenaline rushed high of pain, like heroine in her veins.

 

[patr1ck]

He didn't want any more alcohol either. He needed to be clear-headed. He was responsible for her now - till - till when? Till he wasn't. Later.

The futon was just beneath where some lengths of rope hung. Five longer strands, he needed this time. He took them, and lifted her slightly, parting her legs as she lay face down. He lay the strands of rope so that her cunt rested on them. He wanted the rope to smell of her desire.

He couldn't help himself. He wanted to go about his task but his fingertips wanted to caress her. Very gently, he stroked up the back of each leg. And then the scars began, and he caressed the scars - on her buttocks, her lower back, her shoulder blades, the backs of her shoulders, then down her spine again.

Enough. Enough of that stuff. Don't fall for her. She wants you to be cruel anyway.

'I want to swathe you in rope, Ella.' He pulled the futon, with her and the ropes on it, back to where they had been, beneath the hanging chain and the hook. In the corner a beam was propped, perhaps two metres long. He brought it over. It had five holes bored into it at regular intervals, and two chains that led to a hook. With difficulty he clipped the hook into the hook of the hanging chain.

He let go of the beam. It hung over her nude body, the length of her body. He knelt. He couldn't stop himself. He stroked her hair and kissed her face.

Stop, man, stop.

He was worried he wouldn't be ruthless enough with her now. Her cumming had flicked some kind of switch in him. It didn't fit with this place, this dark place they were trapped in.

'Ella,' he said. 'Ella.' He lifted her slightly, and pulled out the first piece of rope from under her. He smelt it. Smelt her lust. 'Ella.'

 

[Drobabes]

The ropes were rough yet intensely erotic. It didn't take her long at all to coat them in her juices. His fingers on her legs felt amazing, but as he lightly traced her back, she once again went rigid. A bit of anger, but more, stomach flipping fear, shot through her and made her want to tell him to stop. However, she just bit her tongue. She knew it wasn't his fault; he didn't understand, and right now wasn't the time to tell him.

'I want to swathe you in rope, Ella.'

"Then do it baby"

She was having fun now. The guilt had been, temporarily, lifted and she was curious what he wanted to do. What new ways did he want to hurt her?

Each passing second was making her more and more horny, and she flushed deeply as he brought the rope to his nose. God that's hot, she thought, and then another thought. Would she have the energy to fuck him when he was through with her?

So caught up in the heat of the moment, she was oblivious to shift in his tone, and the ever so slight change in his posture towards her. Maybe if she hadn't been tipsy, or as horny as she was, she might have noticed and done something about it.

 

[patr1ck]

She could change in a moment. He wasn't sorry, that he'd touched her back. He unfastened the rope at her waist, only to replace it with one of the longer strands he'd newly acquired. Tight round her waist; tight through her crotch; then, from the small of her back (at every touch there something clicked off in her, until his fingers left her) he rant the doubled rope up to the middle hole in the beam that hung from the hook, overhead.

He knew what he could do to her. If he felt angry towards the world, as he usually did. To her back. To something scarred deep in her mind.

But, for the present, he felt a disturbing urge to be kind to her. To show her his gentler ways. He unfastened the ropes around her breasts - just happening to touch them, of course - again and again - and then his second longer rope looped under her armpits, above her breasts, and then up behind her, to the end hole in the bar.

She would perhaps understand something of his intentions now. He didn't talk, but he sang quietly, a song of his own devising: 'Rope...rope...rope...'

And he touched her face and then the third strand of rope was around her chest, below her breasts, and it too led up to the bar, to the second hole in the bar...

'Hope you can cope,' he sang, 'Rope...rope...rope...'

 

[Drobabes]

She waited patiently for him to work, and every time his fingers brushed her, she couldn't help but wonder if he was giving her a teasing sort of warning about what might be to come. A nervous fluster bubbled up in her, and it was difficult to tell if it was just the fear, or that disgusting craving again. Would he do something worse? She didn't doubt it. She had only to look around at where he had taken her and smell the putrid air.

Did she want him to do something worse? Something that might leave her mentally incapacitated for days? Of course not. But, at the same time, yes. The addiction.

Fighting her own need, not wanting to but having too, she wondered what she could do to incite that behaviour in him. He seemed to be a sadist, not a rapist, and although she knew there was a difference, she didn't know where the line was drawn. She wanted that same treatment from him, though. Or maybe... something worse? God, did she want to go that far? Had she fell down the hole so far into her addiction?

But what could she do in ropes? What could she do but watch his every move, stare into those green eyes whenever he looked at her, and quiver?

Something in the smell of the air changed...or maybe she was just, finally, going insane.

 

[LP1957]

He sat alone at a booth overlooking the bar. He was nursing a cold beer. A beer that never emptied. This booth was not unlike the booth he would sit in, at a million different bars, and watch his wife sitting at the bar in his previous life.

He would make her sit there and whore herself out to whatever man might take the stool next to her. Only he wasn’t whoring her out for money or financial gain. He was sending her off with other men for his own carnal pleasure.

She wasn’t allowed to return to him until she had gone to the parking lot and into their van with another man to have sex and bring her story back to him.

Sometimes she would attract a gentleman and come back to him with a smile. filled with their seed in her pussy or mouth. Other times they weren't so nice and she would slink back into the bar either bloodied, or with a spray of cum across her face, body or clothes.

But the diligent sweet wife that she was, she always returned to his table. He sat waiting for her to appear now. Only she never did. He felt that she could be the key to release him from whatever this place was?

Instead of his wife, he sat here and gazed upon whoever was in the bar tonight. Mostly the usual characters and with only slight changes that brought him boredom and remorse. If he could only finish his beer, he felt he could get up and move along. But it never emptied. No one ever came to refill it. He had no interaction with a waitress or anyone else. It just NEVER emptied no matter how fast or how much he drank of it.

At times he could drink enough to just pass out and sleep off his misery. That just made him feel worse when he awoke and found himself in the same place, the same surroundings, the same half empty beer.

There was one lady he liked to watch. She was a regular and most nights she would appear on the barstool in front of him. Not unlike his wife when she sat there awaiting her fate for the night. He never did catch her name as she never offered it to whomever dared to sit with her.

From time to time, the idiot cowboy would show off his machismo and almost rape her ritght there at the bar. Other times a man with cold dark eyes would enchant her and he would take her from the bar to who knows where.

Edward couldn't remember being outside of the bar since he had first arrived there. He sometimes thought that this mystery woman might be his key if only she might come over and sit, or talk to him.

But like his wife, that didn’t seem to be in the rules. He didn’t even know if she knew he existed. If she knew he watched over her and anyone else in the bar when they were present.

It seemed at times she sat remorseful and in deep thought. At other times, like tonight she sat with a pained look in her eyes and demeanor. That look was occasionally replaced with a look of bliss and happiness that only lasted a short time until she was again looking pained.

Edward wondered what it all meant. It was like she was present there for him to watch over every night, but that she was also somewhere else in a mixture of deep pain and pleasure.

He sipped at his beer and wondered if things would ever change? If this nightly routine might ever move along? If he would ever see daylight again?

 

[patr1ck]

There was a fourth rope, wound round the tops of each of her thighs, with a little rope left hanging free for some purpose or other.

And finally a fifth rope, which was he thought the one that made her convincingly something like a work of art: he bent her legs back, face down as she was, and fastened her ankles together criss-cross with the rope, leaving two loops. One led to the last place on the bar above her bound body. For the other he suddenly took hold of her hair, and pulled it back so that her face was forced to look forwards, her neck bent. He bound her hair in the rope from her ankles, and made it taut.

He went to the handle in the pillar and raised it, till her body left the futon, and she was hanging in the air, facing ahead, dangling by the five ropes above and below her breasts and at her waist and crotch, and at her thighs and ankles. He sang to himself, as if it were an old blues: 'El-la! She's a dangling woman!'

He raised her carefully until her mouth would be at the height of his cock, if he stood in front of her. Then he stopped turning the hand and came to her.

He rubbed himself, clothed, against her face.

'El-la! She's a dangling woman!'

Only now did he unfastened the handcuffs that pinned her wrists behind her back. Poor lamb (he took care not to stroke her back, just her underside, the unscarred and soft and tender skin), the cuffs had dug into her wrists. As she exercised her hands, now they were free, he took hold of her left wrist and manouevred her arm around the ropes so it was beneath her, and he took the free part of the rope left at her left thigh and fastened her wrist there.

And he did the same to her right arm and wrist.

'Dangling woman,' he sang, 'cum for me tonight.'

He squatted so he could speak close to her face. 'Here's what you do. You rub yourself. You cum when you like. You make me cum because my cock will be in your mouth. Make it slow. I want to tell you of terrible tortures I want to commit on your body.'

And he stood, and he took hold of the ropes that she dangled from and twisted, so that she began to circle, anti-clockwise. And then, helpless, she stopped, and circled the other way. And he was standing there, and caught hold of her cheeks, and now his jeans were around his ankles, and his wide cock was there, pushing itself into her mouth...

 

[Drobabes]

Make it slow. I want to tell you of terrible tortures I want to commit on your body.'

She felt so vulnerable, but she was more than ready for this. The smell of him filling her nose made her mouth water, and she let out a happy sigh as he came close to her. She opened wide for him, moaned as the heat touched her lips, and found it almost impossible to move her head, so instead, she let him come to her. Happily she lavished his cock, making sure to circle his crown over and over, then slowly, as he had asked, she worked her tongue down the underside and suckled gently. Then back up, circling the crown again, and back down, over and over.

Her own fingers on her pussy were slow as well, dipping in and out of her hot cunt while ever so lightly putting pressure on her clit. She wanted this to last just as much as he did.

 

[patr1ck]

It was no good, he would come too soon if he let her tongue lavish such delights on his cock. He eased himself out of her. He crouched down so their faces were at the same level. 'Don't stop touching yourself,' he said. His hands framed her face. 'We are here in Perdition because we have not fallen into the darkness. No, we've embraced it. Plunged into it. And sorrow is our reward.'

His hands reached across ropes to cup her breasts. He kissed her sad eyes. 'Perhaps tomorrow you will wake chained in a tiny box, a vibrator fastened to your clitoris, and wires at your toes and nipples and anus and cunt. And outside I will demand you tell me the darkest things you have ever done, or have permitted to be done to you. But I'll hardly care about your answers, for I'll just want to hear you scream, and suffer even as you know joy.'

He exhaled. He stood. His cock pushed at her lips again. 'And the day after you'll wake and -'

Ah. Her tongue, her lips.

'The day after you'll - Fuck -'

He pulled out of her mouth. Should he do it now? Thrust into her mouth and down her throat until she couldn't breathe? Fuck. Fuck.

 

[Drobabes]

A little drool, just a bit, fell from her chin as he pulls away, and warm fingers plunge into herself once again as he commands her not to stop. She's panting, and all but lost in the moment as he speaks to her.

'We are here in Perdition because we have not fallen into the darkness...

Perdition? Was that what this place was called?

It was true that she had lost track of when she first arrived, as time here could so quickly become muddled. Days could shrink to minutes and the only thing that differentiated one moment from the next for her was if it were soft and warm, or sharply hard and carrying the clarity of pain.

Later she would wonder how he knew of these things, and ponder on how far he may have gone, or how long he might have stayed, down here. In this place so far away from the warmth. Right now, though...

His hands on her flesh-hot, burning, making her cunt make sloppy sounds as she became feverish with need.

And the day after you'll wake and -'

She doubled her efforts. The gentle swirls and teasing tastes become rapid as she used her lips to create a vacuum seal. When he pulled away, she gasped, swallowed, and then opened her lips wide to recieve him again. She knew he was struggling, and it only made her want him more.

 

[patr1ck]

'Ella.'

He was gone, gone. He wanted her forever bound and helpless and here she was, bound and helpless and nude and rubbing herself. He bent forward, hardly able to keep the tip of his cock from her open mouth. He saw the tiny criss-crosses of all the wounds on her back and he wanted her to tell him of every one, how it happened, he wanted to wound her all over again, and have her rub herself as she told, and have her suck on him between her gasped sentences...

'Ella,' he said, surrendering, triumphing, the tip of his cock between her lips. Bent, smelling her desire and the odour of her memories, he reached under her for her nipples.

'I'll hurt you,' he said, and each thumb and forefinger grasped each of her nipples as she sucked him in, licked and sucked.

'Pierce you,' he said, beginning to pull the nipples sideways, away from each other.

Thrusting now, 'whip you,' he said, pulling the nipples.

Feeling the glow just before cumming, 'burn you,' he said, now twisting her stretched nipples.

'Yes,' his hot sperm hitting the back of her throat, 'torture...endless...'

And he twisted and pulled and thrust and came and came...

 

[sexygurrl]

She sat in a corner booth away from the door. She'd always been a "people-watcher" and being stuck in this place hadn't sucked that small pleasure out of her.
She made herself small and pulled the oversized hoodie just over her eyes, concealing her most memorable feature. Fire-red hair, curly and pulled back in a soft bun. She'd always been able to make herself unnoticeable, it's what made her such a good people-watcher. This wasn't the place you wanted to call attention to yourself anyway, if you could help it. She'd seen some things....
"Raquel, Raquel, Raquel...." She whispered so softly that she could barely even hear herself. Her own name, for fear that she would forget who she was. She couldn't remember her last name, anyway, the maiden or married one.
As she whispered her name, her hands went inside the large pouch in front of the hoodie and there she found the deck of Tarot cards. She had thought about so long ago, so long. She had thought about how, in a different life, she'd turn to the cards when she felt lost and then it had appeared right in front of her. So long ago, so lost, and all she had ever done was shuffle the damned cards.
Something about it struck her funny, and she smiled to herself as an errant ghost-like thought in the background made a demand of mozzarella sticks.
She couldn't help but laugh as a dish of piping hot mozzarella sticks and almost boiling marinara sauce seemed to materialize right in front of her, completely ruining the effect she had painstakingly cultivated as a wallflower.

 

[Drobabes]

She was in heaven. Free to use her fingers on herself as she pleased, and free to please him as well. Her slow caresses turned to insistent thrusts as she felt him building, and she was only distracted by the pain in her breasts. It wasn't enough to stop her from cumming though, oh no.

The more he twists, the more she doubles down on her efforts, mingling the pleasure with the pain and lavishing him with her enthusiasm. It isn't until the very end, as she is squealing against his length-then, drinking him down, that she falls over the crest and shakes, clenches, in her ectstacy.

The sensations are intensely stronger than the first time, almost too strong, and she makes cries out even as her mouth is still full of him and her vision is like sparks.

She once again loses all sense of herself, lost here in this moment, here in Perdition...

 

[Poprockz]

Darla walked into the bar, going to the counter and waiting for an apple-martini to appear. She took it and sipped, her eyes scanning the place for familiar faces. One of her long-red nails tapped the glass. It was funny, she had died with nail-polish on, and now it seemed to permanently adorn her fingernails.

She wasn't wearing what she died in, which was a blessing. It would have been depressing to walk around in prison clothes for the rest of her undead life. The powers that be had decided to give her a long-sleeved, white button-up shirt with a loose red tie and formal black slacks. Someone sure had a sense of humor, as she was dressed like the kind of guys she had removed from society. None of them had worn red ties, but she figured that signified something else entirely.

The blond-haired woman glanced over at the seat next to her, as if expecting something to be there. Her body relaxed, not her eyes not finding what she thought she would see. The smell of mozzarella sticks wafted into the air, and she looked over at the source of the smell. A figure in a hoody seemed amused at the appearance of the appetizer, the laugh sounded feminine.

Darla got up and walked over to her, sitting down in her booth. "I couldn't help but notice the delicious smell of mozzarella. I would order my own but... things often taste better when eaten with company don't they? I hope you don't mind..." She reached over and took one, taking a bite and letting the cheese stretch as she pulled it away from her mouth. It was unlikely that the other lady would take offense, especially since they could hypothetically order more indefinitely.

 

[sexygurrl]

"Don't mind," Raquel's voice, long unused, sounded hoarse. She cleared her throat and tried again, "Never minded feeding others. There's always more in the pot, that's what my grandmother used to say. No better place than to regurgitate that old saying, I guess." Once she got going she found it hard to stop. It had been so long since she'd spoken to anyone besides herself and above a whisper. She pushed the basket towards towards the woman, "Please, have some more. Sit down, if you like."

She set her cards down on the table and watched the woman as she seemed to chew methodically. The red nail polish had ensnared Raquel's attention and she smiled.
"Oh, names, names. I always forget about names. I'm Raquel." She hesitantly put her hand out to shake hers.

 

[Poprockz]

The woman accepted her invitation, smiling and taking another. She dipped it into the marinara and tried to take a bite, pulling it out of her mouth in just a second before her teeth descended. "Oh wow, that sauce is practically bubbling!" her lips puckered just a bit as she blew on the stick before trying again, successfully taking a bite this time.

She noticed the extended hand and reached out, taking the hand in hers and gently holding it still for a moment before shaking. Her lips curled into a sly smile. "My name is Darla. Feel free to forget it, but don't forget my face." Her blue eyes studied Raquel, not getting much from how covered she was, even her face. All she could see was a friendly smile.

Her gaze drifted to the cards and she seemed interested. "Tarot cards? Do you do readings?" Darla's smile turned slightly bitter. "I suppose it doesn't matter anymore. It's not as though we have futures to read anymore."

She shook her head and laughed, "I'm sorry, I'm being a downer, aren't I? Just forget it." Her fingers took another bite of her mozzarella stick, finishing it off.

 

[sexygurrl]

"I do. I did..." Raquel pulled her hoodie back, revealing the fire-red hair and giggled, "I used to."

She watched her carefully, and smiled, "That may be the case, but..." after a quick shuffle, she pulled a card from her deck, "They may tell us our past." She flipped the card over slowly, "Hmm, nine of pentacles. Ill-gotten wealth, huh?" She looked up and smiled at Darla.

She took a mozzarella stick and broke it in half to cool it off. She pulled the cheese out of letting the string curl around her finger as she left the card sit and stare at Darla.
Eventually, she pulled her cheesy finger into her mouth and popped it out clean.

"Tell me about yourself." She invited, "As little or as much as you want."

 

[lavatrain]

He wandered into the tavern warily, not for the first time and likely not for the last. Tall and foreboding, he frequently ducked below this beam and the next. He was gifted with a preternatural ability to make others ill at ease. He had the lever action rifle slung over his shoulder, saddlebags slung over the buttstock, dangling behind him against the grimy oiled duster draping from his spare shoulders.

An owl perched on the shoulder opposite the rifle.

A dark sphere lay in malevolent resilience in the saddlebag.

He motioned at the intended bar, and three fingers of Irish whiskey poured itself into a dusty shot glass just as he knew it would. The orb hidden in the saddlebag spoke to him silently. He found himself compelled to the nearby tarot reading. His black eyes burned with paranoid light as he tred toward the table and hovered just outside the circle of intrigue.

 

[Poprockz]

Darla smiled as she saw the other woman's red hair, and she could understand why she had hidden it under a hood. It was so glossy, vibrant, and beautiful that it would have no trouble in making her the object of many of the men's interest.

Her eyes followed Raquel's hands as she shuffled and laid down a card. Chuckling at the explanation of the card, "Ill-gotten wealth? Perhaps. Though if it's meaning wealth, then it's definitely not wealth as far as money goes. The only thing I had an abundance of were friends and family." In truth, she wondered if the card was referencing her collection, her tokens. Proof that her friends were forever safe and would never be threatened ever again.

She swallowed as she saw the other woman suck the cheese off of her finger, her mouth having watered as she watched the cheese be wrapped around it. Her blue eyes looked away, not wanting to assume that the other woman was flirting. For now, chatting was enough.

"I was a college student studying psychology... I did some things that I don't regret, but that ended up leading to an early date with the gravedigger. Personally, I would do it again even knowing the outcome."

A shiver went down her back and she glanced over her shoulder, seeing a man coming in and ordering some alcohol at the bar. With great difficulty, she shifted her attention shifted back to the mozzarella sticks. It was hard to do since she very much didn't like turning her back to him; he gave her a feeling of foreboding.

After a few moments, she noticed that he had made his way over to their booth, seemingly wanting to sit down even though he didn't speak the words. Darla thought the owl on his shoulder was intriguing. The booth they were sitting in was shaped like a horseshoe, Raquel being in the middle, and Darla having slid in at one of the sides. She gestured tentatively at the seat opposite her on the other end.

"Did you want to sit down?" she asked hesitantly.

 

[sexygurrl]

Raquel listened to Darla and even smiled sympathetically at her student life struggles. She'd been there, too.

Due to her old habit of watching people, she noticed that shiver go through her new friend and looked quickly around them, only her green eyes darting about so as to not seem too obvious. It wasn't hard to miss the man who had made Darla shiver, especially as he began to make his way over.

Raquel looked up at the man, waiting for his answer. She looked him up and down, not mad, upset, or even arrogant. She simply had a very open, healthy curiosity, and since she knew that if she died she'd eventually come back to the same place (unless something drastically changed), she didn't bother to hide it.

Her eyes hovered over the owl perched on his shoulder and before she could help herself she spouted in a stage whisper, "Femininity, fertility, wisdom, death."

 

[lavatrain]

He regarded the welcome with an unreadable expression. The owl studied each of them in turn, bobbed its head tentatively, resettled a claw into the drifter's duster, as he unslung the rifle and saddlebags from his shoulder, shuffled to the unoccupied space, and slowly took a seat, leaning his rifle against the side of the table. The saddlebags rested at his feet. He raised the shot glass, and the fowl inspected it minutely,. deigned not to sample it, and the man parked it onto the table's rough surface.

He tipped his head toward each of his table companions. He cast an arched brow at the cards arrayed before them,. and turned toward the apparent mystic. Politeness was not aften encountered in his experience. He struggled for a matching response.

The owl craned at the dealer of tarot. "Milton's not much for conversation. Four words, however; enduring, endowing, upending, undoing."

He craned at her companion. "He mistakes unfathomability as depth, but thanks you for the seat and your time."

 

[Poprockz]

Darla looked a little bit confused at Raquel's comment until she realized that she was looking at the owl. For a second she had thought she was talking about the duster, thinking to herself that he certainly didn't seem feminine or fertile. Her own eyes drifted to the owl as well, widening as it spoke.

"Jesus H Christ... That's how you know you're dead. When owls talk and tarot cards can only tell you your past." As she shook her head, an apple martini appeared on the table in front of her and she took it, taking a deep drink. She supposed that nothing at this point should surprise her in Perdition, but it still did. Licking her lips of the sweet apple flavor, she looked over at the little bit of empty seat to her right near the edge.

Her face paled a little as she saw it, the bloody knife. The small, sharp instrument rested almost inconspicuously on the seat, blood still wet upon the blade. No matter where she went in Perdition, it always seemed to follow her, but she was the only one who could see it. Her own personal hallucination. A few wolves had to be hunted to protect the sheep, so why did it follow her? Was this limbo-world trying to make her feel guilty for what she did? Darla thought she had no regrets about it, and yet it still caused her heart to flutter in fear when she saw it.

With great difficulty, she pulled her eyes from it and acted like nothing had happened. Letting out a little laugh, "Sorry about that, I must have spaced off for a second. "I don't mean to be rude, though, owl. I suppose everything goes here. Nice to meet you, and you as well, Milton."

 

[lavatrain]

"Likewise, Miss Darla." The owl whipped its head almost comically in response to Milton's voice. If an owl could look surprised, especially in Perdition, it was in this moment. The drifter's voice emerged from his thin hard lips with the congeniality and aridness of the barren plain. He slowly worked his jaw as if more was coming, then paused, reached for the shot glass, drained it, and set it on the table upside down.

He took a breath, cast his attention at his tablemates in turn, and again that dry voice. "A blooded knife portends more than a deck of tarot, pilgrim."

 

[Poprockz]

She almost chuckled at the owl’s surprised expression. It was almost like something she would have thought to see in a cartoon. When he spoke of the knife, she hid her surprise as best she could, no one having been able to see it before. Perhaps it was just a coincidence that he mentioned one.

Darla laughed nervously, looking at them each for a moment, “Well surely it would if there were one of those on the table. As it is, I think the tarot cards are more informative at the moment.” She took another deep drink of her glass, calming her nerves.

 

[sexygurrl]

Raquel smiled nervously, she stayed quiet due to habit more than anything else. She liked to listen, anyway, and she thought the talking owl was quite amusing.

She hadn't seen Darla's apparition, so she wondered if maybe the stranger's presence is what made her nervous.
Nothing really fazed her before and now in Perdition, that particular psychopathic tendency seemed augmented. No fear, no wrecked nerves, no panic.

She should've been an EMT instead of a professor of demonology. Then again, she probably wouldn't have picked up the deck if she'd chosen another path, and the cards were always nice and accurate for her.

She placed her hand out and a small rocks glass with scotch, neat, materialized snugly inside it. She took a small sip letting the amber liquid gently smolder and tingle over her lips, tongue, and down her throat.

Raquel looked up at the owl again, "That's Milton- nice to meet you, by the way-" She glanced at him and gave him a quick nod, "But what's your name?"