Issabella sat at the counter of the 24-hour smoothie bar, bathed in neon and nursing her wounds from earlier. Raskal the bar-keep kept a secret flame for her, but alas, he wasn't really her type, and she probably wasn't his. But, like two ships never meeting in the night, never intending to meet, or for that matter ever being in the same harbor... here they were, at 2 am. A friendly bonding of odd pairs... him, with a blender, her with a thirst. They say you can tell the depth of a person's love for you by the taste of the food they cook. She sighed... his drinks were fucking good. Raskal was a large French baboon of a man, with a shaggy beard and long hair.
"You want the usual Izzy?" He called while polishing a glass.
"I'll take a Moonfrost."
"Excellent choice, the hyacinth seeds are in season."
"Raskal," She placed her chin on her hands, supported by her elbows on the counter. "What have you been up to?"
"Making smoothies and practicing teleportation."
"What?? Really?" She smiled in disbelief.
"Yes and I think I've almost got it." His finger punctuated the end of his sentence.
"How does it work?"
"Well, I stand really still, like when a person is talking to me—"
"Yes?"
"I stand incredibly still and I wait, and then when they look away for a moment, I move a few feet. Kinda quietly freaks people out."
Issabella laughed. "I thought you were serious."
"I am."
Issabella had spotted a new fish tank in the corner of the room on the way in.
"Who's that?"
"That's Gunther, my new fish. He's a Squirley Oscar."
She turned to view the tank. It was decked out like a mini-version of the bar. It had tiny fluorescent lighting, little pieces of checked tile amongst the gravel and a make-shift countertop. Gunther floated motionless, staring back, its face caricatured boredom.
She watched a bubble come from the fish's mouth as if belching. "Ha, I think Gunther burped." She turned back around to Raskal, who had noticeably moved two feet to the right.
"Really?"
"Teleportation..." in a knowing nod as he set her drink down on the counter.
Each person in their own way was a genius, at least to themselves.
All of a sudden, a bang noise from the entrance as the glass door crashed back against a nearby booth. Issabella and Raskal jumped, startled, they jerked their heads around to catch a large demon bursting into the smoothie bar.
"Oh shit..." She murmured under her breath.
He was out for blood, another low-level Satanyik and he was enraged. His big hand slammed down on the bar, jolting a cup of wooden stir-sticks on the other end.
"You have our brother!" He demanded.
"Where did you come from!?" She questioned.
"From hell! Now give us our brother back!"
"I can't do that."
"Well, me and the boys want him now!" He roared and slammed his fist down on the table again, it jarred straight down onto a loose floorboard that propelled the opposite side up with a powerful force. It smacked hard against the underside of fish-tank.
