=====================
=====================
INF. INK, INC.
=====================
=====================
CHAPTER ONE
Fade to Black.
Executive Liaison Hexley Sweet. What a delight to think about one's own name. Her tall, red heels clicked against the obsidian tiles of the Dark Lord's tower with all the deliberate menace of a professional who understood that lateness, like sincerity, was for amateur succubi. And Hexley was no amateur. As of this morning, she was a fully-accredited Liaison, a 'sexecutive', in trade lingo. And for no less a firm than Infernal Ink, Incorporated. That's Inf. Ink, Inc., to those in the biz.
Assignment one, here we go, Hex. She would have to be flawless.
Up the dingy, dusty back stairs she clacked, to the simple loot room behind the boss fight chamber of Dreadmaster Bierkhan, Lord of the Cold Ones, up and coming young necromancer. Her higher-ups thought he might just be the next big thing, so here she was to get him under contract and secure his soul, if he still had it. It was her big chance to shine.
She gave the barest of nods to the skeleton guards, both, according to their name tags, named 'Bob.' Looking about the bland, unremarkable little room was a bit disappointing. Why did it seem that every Big Bad Evil Guy spent so much gold on the adventurers' entrance, and yet scrimped and pinched coppers on the back? What guest would choose the labyrinth of traps and increasingly intimidating hench-monsters, when the rear entrance was right there, begging lustily to be used? Not a single one, of course, and so not a one would ever see the (she assumed) far more impressive antechamber. Waste.
That said, this was a perfect time to poke around his treasure hoard and see just what caliber of Dark Lord she was dealing with.
Bob looked at Bob. "Oi," he whispered. "Shouldn't we stop her?"
Bob shook his head. "Nah. As you know, Bierkhan leaves the loot lying about on purpose so visitors can check it out."
"Ah, right," said Bob. "Now I remember. It's a common practice among Dark Lords. We're supposed to let the guests wait here a bit so they can be impressed by his hoard. Clever, that."
"That's right Bob. Well, let's see what she looks at!"
Conveniently for the author, it turned out to be a mirror that Hexley looked at. It blinked sleepily back at her. A posh, burbly voice came forth. "Careful, fairest one, stand here long enough and the narrator will take the opportunity to describe you."
"Darling, if a girl can't enjoy the poetry of her own presentation, what's the point of existence?" She tested a more alluring pose, waiting.
The mirror frowned. "Yes, but it's cheap writing."
Hexley surreptitiously brushed a speck of weak prose from her lapel. "Darling, nothing about me is cheaply written. I am more than ready for publication, I assure you."
The mirror, wisely, did not disagree, but settled back into stillness and allowed her to observe.
Hexley regarded her reflection. Yes, she was final draft material indeed. More perfect even than she expected, the torchlight playing off her form in ways it shouldn't in this dim space. (Torchlight, or narrative spotlight? One never knows.) Wait. She tapped the glass.
"Mirror?"
The face swam back to the surface. "Fairest?"
"Are you flattering me?" She fixed it in her fiery gaze.
"Apologies, it's my default enchantment." The image began to dull, ever so slightly, the lighting to harshen.
Hexley held up a hand, first-day nerves getting the better of her. "No, it's fine. Flattery settings on high, love. Let's not undersell perfection."
Her image reverted to the prior vision of curated excellence: smooth, black horns emerging from sleek, dark hair, pinned with infernal precision above the perfect, purple skin, lips the color of nobles' blood, eyes that flared like burning contracts, (yes, that's 'contracts' not 'contacts', you read it correctly) and a close-fitted blazer and skirt, black with pink pinstripes, suited for boardroom and bedroom both.
She adjusted her bloodstone choker by a quarter of an inch and stepped back, considering. She popped one more button, exposing just a bit more cleavage. Turning one way, then the other, she examined the skirt. She hiked it up just a smidge. A bit of cheek? Always a bit of cheek, Hex. Short skirt, long jacket, that was the way. Presentation was everything, indispensable for backroom deals, frontroom deals, and in particular, the time-honored fallback plan of persuasive anatomy. Seduction, that is. More than Bards could play at that game.
She adjusted her grip on the clipboard with only the slightest of jitters, set her shoulders with only a twinge of tension, and with only the barest of wobbles on her impractically high heels, stalked through the door into the short, dark hallway to Bierkhan's boss room.
Epic fight music began to play.
"What tackiness." She glared back at the skeleton guards. "Darlings, isn't there a mute button? Be a couple of dears, won't you?"
One of the clattering figures fiddled with a panel on the wall, and the music silenced. So much better. The bone-boys grinned at her as she passed. She winked and returned the grin, adding just a glint of fang. Bob dropped his spear. How delightfully adorable.
The throne room of Dreadmaster Bierkhan, Lord of the Cold Ones brought a resigned sigh from her full, heaving bosoms, up her delicate, feminine throat, out through her luscious lips, also dripping with femininity. It was every bit as distasteful (the room, that is, not her description, of course!) as any other upstart overlord: absurdly tall ceilings, decor chosen by someone who thought a 'spikey' personality was something to be echoed in the furnishings, and far, far too many brassieres. Sorry, braziers. It reeked of a villain trying much too hard to be fearsome, as if sprung from the mind of a writer trying much too hard to be meta. It also, unexpectedly, reeked of patchouli, like a shop for middle-income patrons trying much too hard to be counter-culture.
She stopped just inside the room and called out. "Bierkhan, I presume? Your decor could use improving."
Always start them on the back foot. Never wait to be addressed. Stalk in as the dominatrix, and you can always let yourself melt into the innocent damsel under their 'fearsome presence'. But, come in all meek and pliable, and you'll never gain the upper hand. Initiative is half the battle. The other half is contract law. And cleavage.
Bierkhan, slouching on his throne at the far end of the room, did not respond, unless a glower can be considered a response. The Dark Lord's seat was elevated by a dozen unnecessarily dramatic steps and flanked by yet more spikes, curved like black claws into a half cage. Hexley crossed the high-peaked hall without waiting for an invitation, breaking its stillness with the swish of her tail and the echoing percussion of her heels. Her entrance was so much more effective without that ridiculous orchestra.
Surprisingly, the necromancer himself was a tall, dashing man, with a hero's haircut. He seemed very much out of place in his many layers of dark cloth, with a cloak that looked to be cut from a material suspiciously similar to the black curtains on the walls. His crown rotated in the air above his head, black-spiked to match the chair. That, at least, was an impressive touch.
Hexley nudged aside some of the scattered bones in her path, and came to stand at the foot of the overwrought stair.
Dreadmaster Bierkhan stirred, and his low, ruined voice scratched a hellish response into the musty air. "You're Sweet?"
"Thank you, you're too kind." It was a well-worn quip, but it would be new to Bierkhan. He didn't appear to appreciate the depth of her humour, however. Well, keep trying, Hex.
"Your name is Sweet? Hexley Sweet?" Dark eyes flashed green. That too was a neat trick, for such a new Dark Lord.
"Call me Hex, darling." Her voice was sugar and it was acid, in equal parts. "I trust you do not intend to carry out our meeting seated on that silly perch of yours."
Bierkhan ignored the jab, and pointed one bony finger in accusation. "If you're Sweet, you're early, you weren't supposed to be here unti--"
"I'm efficient."
"...then you're late."
Late? Had she missed a joke? She wasn't late in the slightest. But, best to move on and not bog down the pitch in quibbling. She tapped the clipboard with immaculate, pointed nails. "'Late' is the status of your licensing, so consider my earliness compensatory punctuality."
Bierkhan growled and slumped somehow yet lower into the spiked seat, straying from disdainful arch-villian slouch to something dangerously close to pouting-child slouch. "Dunno what you're on about. Been busy conquering."
"Yes. We've noticed." Hexley examined her nails after the clipboard tapping. Still perfect. She let her voice drift towards the acidic end of the flavour spectrum. "It's why I'm here."
His voice rasped, harsh and sullen. "I don't appreciate your tone."
"It's imported."
"What does that even mean?"
What did that mean? Good question. Move on. Distract. Confidence. "You ask too much and think too little. Now come down."
The skeleton guards chattered to each other in the doorway. "Gosh Bob, they sure use up a lot of words for not much exposition."
Bob clacked his teeth. "Sure do. We could have got all that out in two lines."
Bob nodded. "Reckon we could've, at that."
There was a pause. Bob turned to Bob and whispered into his temporal bone. "Cute though, ain't she?"
Bob smacked him with an oddly long hand. "I don't need to hear about your boner, Bob."
Bob wished he still had lips. He would have liked to frown. "Low quality pun, that."
Dreadmaster Bierkhan, Lord of the Cold Ones did at last come down from his throne and relocate to the much more sensible, yet still spiked, desk in the corner of the room. Hexley made sure to settle herself into his chair before he made it over, relegating the necromancer to the far side of the desk. She sat there like a serpent--a sweet serpent, but a serpent nonetheless, daring him to tell her to move. He did not.
