When I met Zan's parents, the rumours had already filtered through the grapevine. Anyone from an immigrant background had such an effective flow of gossip in their community, and in the Greek community, they were particularly intense. Everyone knew everyone even if they hadn't met you yet. I showed up to that brunch blind to the opinion that stewed and taken shape like a second head I wasn't aware of sticking out from the back of my neck.

Neither of his parents got up from the table, and the minute we sat I realised this was an ambush. They wanted a dated list of everything I did at twenty-two, when I studied in Australia, when I lived in Greece. Who I met, who I lived with, where I worked, who I dated, how many I dated...

Money was an intense question. My parent's income was mentioned as if they'd sent a private investigator on them. My career and schooling were detrimental to my relationship with Zan who didn't even have a degree. Literature and creative arts didn't exactly spruce up an easy path into a high-income career and when I told them I was planning on opening up a local dance school, all the oxygen thinned out till we were all suffocating at their marble dining table.

Zan sat there and said nothing. It wasn't a meeting, it was an interrogation at gunpoint. I knew Zan would never have my back then, and I accepted it because, well, I don't remember why. I think I was just going through the motions, playing with the mechanics as if I could one day control the relationship.

Matisse's father gathered me in a one-armed hug, careful not to spill his drink. 'Let me look at you properly.'

Two women came up behind him, acting like the Hydra by resting their chins on his shoulders. They were beautiful, covered head to toe in rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. Eyes glistening behind sharp winged eyeliner and pearly white teeth grinning under full red lips. I wondered if one of them was his mother.

'This is the infamous Lyra,' one woman said.

'You've heard of me already?' I said. The coldness swept up my numbed back, like a faint ghost touch. Alarm bells were going off, like hearing the sirens ring in the next neighbourhood. I couldn't seem to delve into my discomfort, I was emotionally pushed back to a numbing pleasant attitude.

'Look at her, she's all confused,' the other woman cooed as if I was some adorable little mammal in a zoo.

'I haven't had the pleasure,' I said. Searching for Matisse who'd disappeared somewhere in the crowd. 'Um, who are you?'

The father clapped a hand on my shoulder, I had to catch myself before I smacked flat onto the tiled floor. 'That'll all be revealed in time. You're late enough as it is.'

I was pushed around the dome-shaped room of crimson-clad supermodels who bowed lowly before the father than they had for Matisse. The father moved on quite briskly as each of the women pinned her between them, arms slunk around hers forming a chain link at which she felt the weakest. The music was pop-jazz, smooth but with enough rhythm to pump your hips to and when a particular loud beat hit, everyone rushed to the dancefloor like a tidal wave of blood pouring into a bowl.

The music seemed to be carrying me, conducting my movements to keep in sync with everyone else. The jewelled women danced nearby having released me to dance with other men. There was something very snake-like about them when they threw their heads back in erratic laughter. Like they were hissing at an upcoming threat.

So, I let the music take me. It would be a lie to say I wasn't having a good time even though I was unsettled deep in my stomach. Hollowed out.

When I finally spotted my date he was up on the stone platform, it was more like a hearth or altar with alien symbols carved into its edges. Matisse observed the staff as they flopped a roll of carpet on the stone bench and unfurled it to reveal a woman, wrists and ankles bound by rope. She looked like she was dressed as a grim reaper, another Halloween-inspired party guest from the last party, with one extra noticeable feature. The black headscarf around her head was not a hoodie but a hijab.

'What's happening?' I said to the void. Everyone's attention hungrily focused on the altar. The glimmering shine to their skin peeling off and baring pulsating red scales underneath. Some muscle tissue lopped off to expose the obsidian skeleton. Right beside me, to my right, the skin had blown off from an undetected wind and revealed a figure who was half-man-half-bull. Another woman was very much herself only with tusks protruding from her jaw. My champagne glass slipped from my fingers and clattered on the floor. No one noticed.

All kinds of ferocious monsters bled through their mortal mirage and cheered as father and son got up on the stage holding up their drinks over the woman's squirming body. The gag around her mouth smothered her screams.

Matisse's eyes glowed through gold rings, like being sucked into a black hole. I was almost petrified.

'Greetings my humble subjects,' the father bellowed. Everyone snickered at the joke I was missing. 'I'm so honoured you all could make it. I know, with the apocalypse on its way, you're all dying to have your way on this crusted wasteland of a world. Soon, you will all be free to roam and terrorize the souls we couldn't catch; and punish the ones who so easily succumbed to us.'

Barks of laughter bounced off the walls. I barely heard another word of the speech as I locked eyes with the victim. She was looking at me pleadingly, chin moving to her muffled cries for help through the gag. The altar reacted to her movement and a ring of fire lit up isolating her away from us all except for Matisse and his father.

That hollowness in my gut flooded with dread.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—

'As a king, and as a father, I am proud of my son for accomplishing such a scheme without our persecutors from above spoiling the chase.' He cackled and clapped Matisse on the back. A king. Making Matisse a prince, and the persecutors from above...

I glared up knowing I'd find nothing, but I understood their references. Well, it doesn't take a genius to know that this was just a portion of hell rising from the molten parts of the earth. I didn't believe it, but that hardly mattered now when I was between a gorgon and a minotaur.

'Our glorious prince of darkness.' The king pointed his cup to Matisse whose expression was guarded but his eyes, as abysmal as they were, sought his father's approval. There was an adoring sparkle within, it made me dizzy. 'Finally worthy of his kingdom.'

I slunk to the back of the room trying to remain auspicious. The closest exit was a jump and leap away, I could make a run for it while they were all distracted, only there was a morbid curiosity within to watch the spectacle unfold. What if this was all some big show? What if I'm hallucinating from a gas leak or a spiked drink?

The woman's muffled screams interrupted the king's speech and he looked down at her grossly for it.

If I left, she would still be tied to the table, and her death would be a certainty.

So! What could I do about it?

I lunged before I could think some more. I picked up a steak knife from a table and clumsily rushed to the emergency exit tugging hard on the fire alarm switch.

The sprinklers enacted immediately, putting out the ring of gold fire and every guest screeched in a way that made my blood curdle as I pushed through their hard bodies and went for the rope around the woman's ankles.

A strong hand clamped onto my wrist, and I locked unwillingly onto Matisse's furious gaze. Even in anger, even with such demonic features, he was gorgeous. His glossy dark curls pasted to his hollow cheeks and the water stripped the golden skin off his muscles like acid. I needed to get a hold of myself!

'What are you doing?'

I didn't think, I just did, and I plunged the point of the steak knife through the corded muscle of his neck. There was nothing stealthy or strong about me, so I stood there in momentary shock that I had done something so unbelievably violent, and that Matisse looked pissed off rather than wounded.

Someone else grabbed me, the victim, and we ducked and ran through the emergency exit. I leapt over agonised bodies and got out of there with the super speed of light back out into the night air.

~:*:~

'This is the worst walk of shame I've ever done.' I was bent over panting. I wasn't satisfied that we were far away enough but couldn't push my body much further by keeling over and vomiting my guts out. The woman was also catching her breath veering her body away from me. 'Hey, hey are you alright?'

She stiffened under my touch. 'You must be really—thick.'

Correct me if I'm wrong, but was that meant to be an insult? It's older than both of us.

'Excuse me?' I said, half laughing half offended. Shock, the poor woman is in shock. I doubt I would be relaxed if the roles were reversed so this is total grounds for irate behaviour, nonetheless, I don't particularly feel I deserve it.

She spun around and undid her headscarf, somehow the act was more surprising than the sacrificial party I'd just witnessed. Actually, on second thought, it wasn't.

I got a good look at her face, those mean beady eyes, the blocky gold chain around her neck and the way she pursed her lips judgementally.

'Do I know you?'

'I should hope not you mole,' she snapped. A mess of buffy dark hair spilled down her chest. 'As if I would ever be seen with the likes of women like you.'

'Mole? What is this the sixties?'

She scoffed. Her hands toying with the length of her scarf as if she wanted to wring my neck with it. 'You were all over that demon. No wonder Zan was led astray you're practically a nympho-sex-addicted-succubus yourself.'

'Zan? What are—wait.' I looked at her headscarf, her outraged expression, and Zan's grandmother's engagement ring on her pudgy finger. 'He's marrying into another religion? And his parents are fine with that?'

'What are you talking about? I'm not Muslim.'

'Why are you wearing a hijab?'

'I was undercover.'

My hand rose to cover my mouth. 'And I'm the idiot here.'

Her nostrils flared.

'You thought you would be safer wearing a headscarf. In this country?'

'Tsk. I will not be lectured by a promiscuous—'

'Promiscuous,' I growled through gritted teeth.

'Yeah, yeah, what you think you're marriage material? Men like Zan never end up with women like you.'

'Oh, if you're such a good woman, how did you end up at the same party I was at? Little Miss Sacrificial-Roadkill.' I stepped into her space and prodded my perfectly manicured nail into her chest.

She scoffed. 'I knew he was seeing you. I knew the moment he started courting me. I was afraid that tonight when he was coming to that stupid party, he was coming to have one last hoorah with your trashy self.'

'Ever so gracious to the woman who just saved your life!'

'I saw how you were wrapped around that demon. It's women like you that disgust—'

Crack.

Our bodies flung into each other's arms and glared at every rise and fall of shadows, our breathing hitched to try and hear over the unsettling calm breeze.

The horizon was burning red, blurring with the blackened night like a gothic painting of hell. Yes, hell, that's what I was looking at. Hell seeping through the little cracks in the road.

I wasn't sure I was actually going to get a chapter out today so yay me! I think I deserve a little applause <3 just a little one.