Uriel

This time when Uriel entered Victoria's home, he chose to use the front door. A blind Butler led him to a sparsely furnished waiting room then faded away to inform his mistress of the new arrival. As he waited Uriel studied his surroundings. The room had a massive sweeping staircase leading up to a grand balcony held up by sculpted stone pillars. Its floor was an enormous mosaic and the depiction of a pond with flouting lily pads spanned from wall to wall was the only color in the space to be seen. Everything else was white, even the trickling fountain set into the wall across from the entrance. The ceiling, all glass, and steel let in more than enough light to highlight the work of art Uriel stood on, and upon closer inspection, he could see that it was made of flowers, leaves, feathers, and tiny bones set in white and protected by a clear finish.

Uriel probed the strange creation and grinned when he felt the protection charms embedded into the masterpiece. They pricked at his power and the beast snapped back. He let it gobble up their energy if only to quiet the thing for just a moment.

The Butler returned and gestured Uriel toward the stairs, his unseeing eyes glazed and empty as he led the way to Victoria's private chambers. The butler pushed open her doors and immediately bowed then stepped aside to let Uriel in before closing them behind himself, disappearing back into the house as if he'd never been there. Inside the opulent Victoria lay spread out atop a low divan in the small sitting area of her bedroom. Today she wore a gauzy wrap that left little to the imagination and nothing else. Feet bare, her hair free, and holding the long end of a hookah in one hand she looked like a goddess.

"So, you came back after all." She ran her eyes over his simple clothes. Like most days the only glamour he wore was one to mask his features along with a white silk shirt and dark pants under a long grey coat. "I must say I wasn't sure you would after failing to keep your end of our agreement"

"I do not break my bargains. Do not insult me by thinking otherwise."

"Is that so?" she smiled pleasantly and gestured for him to join her. "Come, sit. Let us talk about your bargains."

Uriel approached but did not sit. Instead, he stood so close his shin brushed against her knees and she was forced to look up at him.

"There is nothing to talk about." He told her "I did what you wanted now give me my diamonds."

"You were supposed to kill him before the auction!" She almost snarled, but quickly covered the crack in her façade with a pretty smile. "Imagine my surprise when he arrived in good health and stole my painting."

"What can I say, I'm a busy man."

"Oh yes," she mocked "your little king and his mighty crown, whatever would he do without his little pet to keep the rest of us in line." A sudden gleam entered her eyes and her tone changed to a contemplative one "You must have seen a great many things in your service to him. It makes me wonder what skeletons you must be privy to."

"Victoria." He admonished her because she of all people knew secrets could be just as precious as the rarest stone. Know enough of the right ones and you could rule the world and she wasn't called the collector for nothing. Indeed, she took great joy in finding out what others did not want to be known then demanded a high price for keeping it that way, and the more extravagant the gift, the safer your secret was. Plucking the hookah from her hand he took a drag from the mouthpiece then let it out in a billowing haze

"The secrets I keep tend to get heads removed and I think both of us like ours just fine where they are. Besides, I think you would be pleased to know" he said returning to another subject and holding out the hookah to her. "because of 'suspicious timing', your painting has been returned to its previous owner who still wishes to sell it. Word is he trying to find the second bidder but since they were anonymous, he's having a rather difficult time of it."

Victoria pursed her lips in dissatisfaction. Reaching as if to take the hookah back she instead gripped his shirt, pulling him down so that they were eye to eye and Uriel braced a hand on the back of the divan to keep from falling forward.

Still smiling she whispered "you risked something that wasn't yours and I Don't. like. It." She seethed "When people gamble with what belongs to me. You shouldn't play games you can't afford to lose, Shadow. Not when you're indebted to our king." Uriel's eyes narrowed at her words. She smirked. "Oh, don't be so surprised. Everyone knows he owns you and everything you get from your bargains." She released his shirt and slowly drew her hand down his abdomen. "But I can give you something he can't take away. Something better than diamonds" she whispered pressing a hot kiss to the spot just below his jaw and sending a wave of energy crashing into him. The ozone taste of power coated his tongue making the beast wild with hunger. Her lust was honeyed nectar on his tongue and the beasts' claws pricked at his skin, its mating call a roar in his ears, so loud it almost drowned out her next words.

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It wanted her.

And it wanted the poison in her veins.

Uriel clamped his will down around the beast, caging it before it could snatch up her bait, but the laws of nature demanded he repay her gift, and so he allowed a single drop of power to escape past his skin.

This was the secret the mage guarded so viciously.

Everyone had power and that power could be given or taken but one always required the other.

And with the mage, it was never a fair exchange.

Each mind was born with a natural barrier that kept the power of the soul within the body. But this barrier was weak and could be broken by the simplest touch. The mage, however, could build walls within their minds. Walls so thick with doors and gates and guards that they could control how much passed through. Ordinary people could too, but theirs were weak flimsy things next to what the mage could create, and their minds only built them when they were aware of the mage and the danger they presented.

All living creatures began with their own store of energy. Like a battery, the body could only draw on such stores for so long. As one's energy was used up, they aged. When the energy reached a certain level, they would die. How little one could survive on varied from person to person and species to species. Creatures born with less could continue with barely a scrap of what the strongest would need. And just as all things could not fall below what they needed neither could they go beyond what they could hold.

When two creatures came in contact a transfer of energy would occur, each giving and receiving a fraction of the other's power. The results of these exchanges relied entirely on who had the lower threshold and where it lay. For most the effect was minimal. Closely matched powers could part no worst for ware having gotten no more than they gave.

However, if two entities held powers that varied too greatly, the results could be deadly for both. When a body was filled with more than it could hold, it would quite literally explode. For the stronger, like the mage: men and women born with the ability to hold vast stores of power or use talismans to hold what they could not, they were left weak and crippled. If they gave to or took from those who could not give back what they needed, they quickly became drained, and the light of their souls would die. Simply put a rat could sustain a mage as much as an AA battery could power a house.

But the energy that sustained all things lived by a strange paradox. When willingly given, it would magnify itself within the receiver, as though the act of will become its own sort of power. Similarly, when taken by force it became less. If a weaker creature gave a tenth of their energies and received a tenth of a more powerful life, the stronger could break even while the weaker gained an extension to their own if the power received did not extend beyond their ability to contain it. But sometimes that was not the case. Sometimes it was too much and like a city by the ocean. they would be swallowed by the greater power.

Most were unaware of the constant transactions they made with each other. But their unprotected minds were the lifeblood of the mage. An ordinary human's lack of knowledge made them careless, and in their ignorance, they left their minds open, free for the picking. Unhindered the mage reaped from an endless source of power, using it to fuel their glamour, spells, charms, and an endless youth that kept them far from death's door.

All the while they laughed at the frailty of man's weak minds.

When he, with his beast and hidden power, let her taste a drop of the ocean he held inside, Victoria made the grave mistake of believing Uriel was weak.