~~Jack~~
Getting taken back to the real world was a curse and a blessing. Everything, everywhere, was teasing him with answers he couldn't get to. What was the Ritual of Faces? Black Blood and the red wraiths, what did they have to do with the ritual, how were the hunters doing it, why were hunters and spirits working together, what did the red wraiths mean when they mentioned 'who the monster speaks with... the trail to their goal.' Azamel? Were they talking about Azamel? If they were, how did they know Azamel was talking to him, and that he'd somehow be the way they'd get to her. How did the spirits know what he looked like?
All the answers were on the other side of the Gauntlet, and the Uratha weren't going to let him stick his fingers into their world to find out.
"You should recognize this place," Clara said, popping open a door behind one of the newer apartment buildings bordering on the Carthian edge of South Side and North Side. "Well, not this specific place, but you'll know what's going on."
"I don't—"
"A sex hole!" Fiona said, bubbling voice earning everyone's glance. Too loud, too high pitched for the somber surroundings, the darkness and flickering lights, and the curved, unnatural bend to the street lamps. "I've been 'ere, on the other side."
"I... don't understand," Damien said.
Carter smirked at him. "You have no idea how much this side bleeds into yours, no idea how much of the insane crap you glimpse is the work of spirits." No doubt the older werewolf was looking for a chance to get back at the Mekhet; a little face rubbing of knowledge over ignorance wasn't too dishonorable, evidently.
If Fiona was right, and it was a sex hole, Jack knew what he was going to find inside. Or at least, he knew what the physical version of it looked like. What would the spirit version look like?
Inside the building, there weren't hallways or doors. Which made no sense, because it was an apartment building, like the one Jack and them had tried to find a hiding place in earlier. But this building, once they were inside, had none of that. The building was five floors high, and once inside, there was no ceiling on each floor; it was a big, open building.
The walls were pink and light blue, and curved in ways to emphasize the bumps and S shapes associated with flesh. From the ceiling dangled an enormous chandelier, twenty feet tall and a hundred feet in diameter, made of crystal, and lit with flames of mostly pink and blue again, with some lit as varying shades between. The human sexuality metaphor of the flame was blatant.
Some of the sex spirits Jack saw last time were here. Maybe not the same spirits, but the same idea, same premise, same shapes, colors and floating torsos of breasts, curves and musculature. They were swirling around what looked like, maybe, a five feet high mountain of pillows. It reached from wall to wall of the enormous building. That was a lot of pillows; thousands of pillows.
Near the center of the mountain of softness, was a larger spirit, perhaps ten feet tall, and with a shape far more developed and specific than the other spirits. She — it — looked human, to an extent. Curvy, with a flat stomach, wide hips, and heavy breasts that hung from gravity. She was lying sideways, her breasts smooshed to the blankets. Her multi-colored hair was unhumanly long, and flowing over the pillows, maybe twenty feet. Like the chandelier, her hair was pink and soft blue, but changing from one, to the other. Her skin color was similar, drifting between colors you'd not expect to find on any normal human. As much as her body looked developed, with fingernails, nipples, toes and legs, her face was a nebula of color. Hard to describe, hard to nail down in absolute terms, as if a woman had put on make-up that was a portal into the endless nether of stars, energy, and souls. Pretty.
"You come to my home, Clara? Flowing Sanctuary?" it said. A heavenly, singing voice, layered many times over. A choir, both male and female voices filling the massive room with echoing rapture.
"Just using the locus to get back across. Got a problem with that?" Clara said. "You and your sisters"—she raised her hands to physically quote 'sisters'—"walk on thin ice already, don't—"
The beautiful entity shook its head. "No, of course not, I... I am surprised at your company though. Sexual little creatures, aren't they?"
The two vampires and monster glanced between each other. "What?" they said.
"The one with no hair," she said, and gestured to Jack. "Forever buried in sexuality, aren't you? You are aging like a fine wine, as the humans would say. Whoever is enjoying your many layers of flavor in the bedroom, I hope they are mature enough to appreciate the depth you offer."
"I... I um..."
"And you." The goddess of sexuality looked at Fiona, and smirked. "Many women are flowers waiting to bloom. You are a volcano, waiting to erupt, and unleash your lust upon all you wish."
Damien, Jack, Clara and Carter, even Flow, then looked at Fiona, as the small girl blushed red enough to hide her freckles.
"You, half-haired one," it said, with a flick of her hand toward Damien, "are a conundrum. But, I'm sure once you pierce the walls of your inner bliss, you'll find you have pierced a dam, holding back a river of desire greater than most."
Ok, wow, what a way to meet a spirit: a sexuality reading that had everyone feeling uncomfortable, except for Clara, who was doing her best to not laugh.
"Um... thank you?" Jack said.
The enormous creature shrugged, rolling onto her stomach and settling her chin on her forearms. She looked so human, but wasn't a she, and wasn't human; it was something which looked human, but fed on the sexual atmosphere created in parts of Dolareido. Hell, created in all of Dolareido. Slut City.
Clara took a little longer staring at Jack, than he liked. He, apparently, was a fine wine of sexuality. Maybe she liked the sound of that. He didn't get to ask. She placed a hand on his and Damien's shoulders, and the three of them fell into nothingness.
Fog, white fog. Endless, encompassing, burying. It wasn't the road, the portal, Fiona had used to bring them to this world. Whatever it was, Jack didn't want to be in it, touching it, swallowed by it. It was not good to touch it. It didn't want to be touched.
Images of waking up, trapped inside a brick wall assaulted Jack's mind. He was in a wall. He was in a massive, world-encompassing wall. He was—
He was in Dolareido. The bunch of them stepped out onto asphalt, and into the night of normal, good ole normal Dolareido. No spirits scurrying along the cracks of the streets, no talking birds in the sky, no thunderstorms with names, and no red ghost things hunting him down.
