Chapter 13: 11 | consequence; a contract signed

“Welcome, sweet, wonderful Characters.”

A steady and alluring voice smoothly greeted them as they stepped through the open space at the end of the alley, shrouded in pitch black to hide the treasures inside. Lucas thought that a hint of amusement carefully laced the tone, though he couldn’t be certain.

Alarm bells rung in his head, but he proceeded to walk in, taking a step slightly in front of the boy. The child would be in the most danger—Nora had the ability to handle herself.

The simple reference to ‘characters’ meant that this thing before them was part of the apocalypse.

“I’m surprised that you’ve arrived here so early, like dam—it’s an incredible feat. Do you seek equipment to save your pitiful souls, or knowledge to answer your probing questions? I can grant either, with a price.”

Lights burst into the room, flickering as it chased away the night. The three humans flinched, narrowing their eyes at the sudden onslaught.

Did he just hear a muffled laugh at their reactions?

On the oaken table before them, a woman sat with her legs crossed on the desk, leaning her chin on one hand as she observed them. The ends of her black hair were streaked with blue and purple, hanging in loose clusters over her shoulder while a mixture of red and lavender painted her eyes.

A slim white corset with lace bound her waist, wrapped up in a playful tailcoat cut from the darkest shade of night. A magician, thought Lucas vaguely, as he examined her appearance.

She lifted her chin haughtily, keeping a faint smile on her face. Lucas had a feeling that the edges twitched, struggling not to break out into a full grin. 

He couldn't help but feel like the elegance was all a facade.

“Well?”

Lucas glanced around at the room—it was completely empty, a vast white space that held only a single desk, and she.

“What are you selling?”

“Whatever you want.” She spread out her hands, a jingle of bells spilling into the air as she laughed lightly.

Illusions of gold, of weapons and of fruits, all sorts of items and things flickered to life around them before disappearing. Music played on full blast as she hopped off the table.

She stopped a few meters away from the waiting man.

“Do you have the payment for the thing you desire?”

Instead of answering, he pulled out the beluga from the bag Nora carried, waving it in the air. “Will this do?”

“Hmm… depends. What do you want?”

“Contract Paper.”

She waved her slim fingers, a pure, snowy page materializing. At first glance, there was nothing particularly special about it, but the more one stared, the stranger they would feel.

Dizzy and confused, a longing for the bland item that may be garbage in their hands. The items in the apocalypse attracted humans with their power and beauty, and ultimately corrupted them.

“I wonder… how do you know about this? Hasn’t the End’s Delusion only just begun?” The woman tilted her head, eyes creeping from each person to the other. “I figure an answer to that question might hold more worth than this little stuffed toy of yours.”

The false and strained elegance she acted with in the beginning melted away instantaneously, her words sarcastic and probing.

“The End’s Delusion?”

An abrupt laugh, and a roll of the eyes. “The apocalypse. Whatever you want to call it.”

Lucas fell into silence. He’d written the novel, but there were many things that he didn’t understand. A whole world existed that he’d only grazed the surface of.

To begin with, after claiming the Forsaken Throne, what would happen?

“You shouldn’t think about things you aren’t even close to achieving.” grinned the woman, spinning away as a flowing coat draped over her body before slipping off her shoulders. 

Suddenly, underneath was simply a sleeveless black shirt, and long gloves that paired with simple jeans.

A regular appearance for a murderous creature.

“In fact, I think it’d be more interesting to kill you here.”

The man lifted his unwavering gaze in response. “Go for it.”

“It’s no fun if you don’t react.” frowned the woman, sighing as she sat back down on the desk. “I’m not a good person. I can refuse a trade if I want.”

“Are you refusing?”

She paused, turning her head to Nora. “I’ll agree if you trade me her life. I like pretty woman.”

“Her life isn’t mine to trade.”

“There are people who will think differently.” she stated bluntly, bitterness seeping into her voice before quickly fading. “What do you say, will you trade your life to help this man out?”

Nora smiled politely, unfazed. Lucas noticed a while ago that despite her worried or careful actions, she was one that performed incredibly well in stressful situations. 

Such as now, when bloody danger weighed heavily in the air.

“I won’t.”

“Really? I took you for the gentle, sacrificing type.”

Lucas’ companion shook her head. “He and I have known each other for less than a day. This isn’t a life or death situation, and him gaining the object he’s looking for doesn’t benefit me. Therefore, it isn’t necessary for me to sacrifice my life at this moment.”

"Well, well."

Her explanation was clear and straightforward, leaving no room for argument.

In fact, had Nora offered to sacrifice herself, Lucas would’ve been suspicious. There were no free services in the world, and for a stranger that he hardly knew, why would either of them sacrifice for each other?

They both wanted to survive the apocalypse, to reach the ending.

This delusion, as the strange woman called it.

Of course, that wasn’t to say that naturally sacrificial, down-to-earth and genuine people didn’t exist, but kindness to that point would only get one killed during these times.

Anybody sweet enough to devote their lives to a passing stranger would die within the first three months.

Tired of the back and forth, Lucas turned around into the hollow space. Even if the exit had twisted and disappeared, he was certain that it hid somewhere nearby.

The woman called out, “Who are you looking to make a contract with?”

“The Joker of Ruined Sanity,” He responded in a low voice, slowly turning his chin to glance back with unnerving calm. The blinding desolation behind him only served to illuminate his slender figure more, making his presence all the more towering.

“Will you make a contract with me?”

Nora spun around, startled, as the quiet boy mirrored her expression, twisting his neck to look back and forth.

A crazed, laughing smile stretched out on the woman’s lips, and her grin revealed a set of pearly whites with two naturally sharp canines. A cat's smile. Sly and mischievous.

“Well damn, the act’s over then, isn’t it?”

Colours came crashing down in terrible waves, the space distorting into swirls and twists that made Lucas’ mind tumble. He scrunched up his eyebrows, pain embedded within the flashing brightness burning into his sight.

Then, darkness.

The Joker’s voice echoed around him, like a mantra or a curse creeping into his ears, stealing away his attention.

“What if I say I don’t want to make a contract with you?”

“You will.” answered Lucas in terrifying confidence, closing his eyes with a flutter of eyelashes. For some peculiar reason, not seeing felt strange yet familiar.

A loud laugh chortled from the darkness. “Why’d you think that? Say whatever you want, the kid and woman are safe. She is pretty though, that wasn’t a lie.”

“I think to talk, we’d have to make introductions first.”

A false pretense of politeness cloaked his smooth, charming voice—and she knew immediately that this man was a scammer, used to speaking words of alluring whispers and convincing.

The trait of his seemed to directly contrast the detachment and made him all the more intriguing.

The light rapture of heels echoed. “I guess you’re right? The name’s Wren Breakers, Lucas Silvius. Believe it or not, I was human once.”

“I believe it.” He paused, dissecting her every word. “I never introduced myself.”

“There are some benefits to becoming a monster.”

“Is it worth it?”

His voice hitched, a cool sharpness resting against the crook of his neck, drawing a trickle of crimson. A calmness still overtook his expression, as if life and death were mere rambles to him, as if he couldn’t care less.

Really, perhaps that was true.

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“Immortality, power. Don’t people crave it, pray for it? To live without fear in this damn world? Do you think I’m happy?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Lucas stared ahead, making out the blurred outline of the woman, right before him.

There were many who desired immortality, and many who didn’t. After all, the mortality of humans was something to crave—it made surviving worth it, knowing each minute could be their last.

Power too, always came with a price, common as the saying was. 

The very price could be the simple truth that even if all the strength and ability were to condense into one person, they could still fail to gain what they desired.

Humans never stopped wanting more, forgetting what they already had. 

The blessed green leaves that bloomed into shades of red during fall, or freshly fallen snow that pained miles in pure white, made of millions of small, fragile flakes.

The heat of the pulsing oven that wafted the scent of heated delicacies, or the roof of a house contracted by dozens of workers that shielded from catastrophe.

For some people, less was more.

“What is it that you desire?”

Her response was another short laugh. “Damn, is this a therapy session or something? Answering a question with a question is a pretty annoying thing to do.”

“If you want to kill me, then get it over with. If you want something else, then tell me.” His words were slow and dragging, every syllable marked into her listening ears. “Let’s make a deal, Wren.”

“What can you give me?”

His answer came in a single, powerful word that made the blade tremble, and her burning blood chill with remembered anger, despair, and contempt.

“Revenge.”

“How… how do you know? What do you know?”

She stepped back, but he stretched out a hand and grabbed her wrist tightly, holding it before his slender neck, vulnerable and fragile. 

He was staking his entire self on this contract—and when she struggled and snapped her head to meet his eyes, she came to a striking understanding.

This man had somebody he was willing to die for. A determination molded by a desire to save, to protect.

She had somebody like that, once.

Allowing for a wry grin, she shook her head and faded into the surrounding. “You won’t answer me, will you?”

“I won’t.”

He couldn’t. The details of the novel were mysterious, and bringing to the fact that it had been erased from existence, there was no saying what sort of consequence would occur if he spoke the truth.

Until things could be understood further, it was wise to stay cautious.

“How can I know that you have the capability of giving me my vengeance?”

Lucas didn’t know of her name originally, although he was aware of her special circumstances. She’d been a human lured by her lover into a story, stabbed in the back during the most dire time.

The price of losing to the Story was typically death in unimaginable ways, but she’d somehow caught the eye of the monster guarding the tale, and had her humanity revoked.

An unlucky woman, murdered in the very beginning, morphed into a disaster.

There were two existences she wanted to get revenge on.

The one who betrayed her—a person Lucas knew of well, because he wrote the very man that became one of the Kings, and the one who stole the blessing of death away.

The latter would be more difficult to find, but as long as desire and desperation coexisted, a way could be unearthed.

Well, the Spade King, her ex-lover, could be taken down from his throne easily.

A true and deceptive piece of trash, only able to find any success through sheer trickery and luck. But a person who only knew to betray without the strength to survive on their own couldn’t live for long.

“I know where he is. And I can promise his fall.” said Lucas in a soft mutter. “As for the other, only time will tell. Only know that without me, you’ll never be able to succeed in your revenge.”

Wren scoffed, waving away the darkness until suddenly, they were both sitting on a table, surrounded by nothing but air. “I can’t trust you, idiot. I have no reason to.”

Lucas shrugged. “I’m not asking for your trust. I’m asking for your ability.”

“As if those two things don’t come hand in hand.”

“They don’t have to. It’s a contract, an agreement on both our ends. I’ll use you, you can use me. You have no obligation to save or protect me.”

“Tch, even so—“

“Your lover will become the Spade King in the next Ranking. You know what that is, and what it’ll mean. We can steal that title from him right after he gets a glimpse of absolute power—leave him crippled, begging for mercy.”

Despite speaking of such cruelty, Lucas’ face remained somber and uncaring at the prospect of ruining another person. Wren gritted her teeth, enamored, charmed by the notion.

How long had she dreamed of vengeance?

Longer than one could imagine.

To the point her waking day and nightmare riddled evenings would drown in that thought, in the desperate and foolish desire that overtook her entire being.

The apocalypse hadn’t been long, but she’d lost the concept of time while trapped under the Joker’s reign. 

Almost as if she were repeating the same year, over and over.

Her hands twitched, and a piece of paper floated from above, landing softly on the table. A pen appeared, standing on its own and dancing across the page, ink spreading across in looped letters.

“When a person gains the title from the deck of cards, it’s called a card bond.” said Wren, dazed, lifting her eyes. “Of course, not all cards have a conscious. I own the Joker card—that’s my identity. The King's all have their own card as well."

“You’re agreeing to the contract?”

A scowl flitted onto her lips. “Tch. In return, you and I will be bound together. The only benefit is that you will have access to my powers, nothing more, nothing less.”

“What power?”

At this, a sardonic smile appeared on her lips. “Well, there’s the convenient ability to store things. I technically will have a spatial space linked to you, so you can toss your things in. Limited, for the most part.”

“That’s useful. What else?”

“It wasn’t as if my damn mutation gave me nothing—the power to steal and take.” She stood up, leaning closer as her painted red lips warped into a wicked grin.

“You can steal the power from those you kill, mold it, shape it, make it yours.”

Lucas raised his eyebrows. “The consequences?”

His knowledge about the Joker’s abilities was limited considering she’d never accepted a long-term bond in the novel, but such a power couldn’t come without severe consequences.

“Well, of course it's limited. You can’t use it as well as the first person did, and the more you gain, the more burden is placed on your body. Also, you can’t pick and choose whose power you steal after killing.”

“That’s not everything, is it?”

Her gaze wandered down to the paper, and the pen that jumped over to her hands. She signed it without another second to waste.

“Because I’m such a good person, I’ll give you a warning. This ability can kill you if you’re not strong enough, giving you a death worse than anything you’ll experience in this apocalypse.” A tilt of the head, and excitement in those swirling pupils as she stretched out her hand. “Will you sign the contract?”

In her offered palm, the fountain pen rested, waiting to be used.

Lucas accepted it.

He stopped before the nib touched the page, making sure to stare directly into her eyes. Regrets or hesitation couldn't exist in their relationship. 

"There is no known method to break a card bond without death. Do you still want me to sign it?"

Wren scoffed, crossing her arms. "Is that a joke?"

"It's your last chance to turn back." answered Lucas honestly. Although he wanted her power, there was no use in an unwilling card bond with somebody as unpredictable as she.

"Just sign the damn paper."

There was no going back after signing, a contract that would remain until death did them part. Yet thinking of the trickery of this sly woman, and the troublesome future that likely awaited, he lowered his head.

And the contract was signed.

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