Visiting Relatives

After leaving the library Delilah did not head home. She felt like being alone, but she also wanted to be outside. The dank air was a comfort to her as she once again roamed down Memory Lane.

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Delilah had just finished a training exercise when Akuuz took her aside.

"I need to speak with you, meet me in my quarters in an hour." Was all he said before going off to get ready for his next session. Delilah was more than a little curious. Akuuz was never particularly mysterious, it wasn't in his nature. Her over-active imagination came up with a hundred different reasons why he could be so secretive all of a sudden, but she knew better than to believe any of them. She would simply have to wait and find out for herself.

She left the training ground and went home to change out of her ridiculous pink dress and into something much more suited to her tastes. Her Father insisted that she train in those silly clothes because they were what she would be wearing on the job, and it only made sense that she get used to fighting in them. It was true of course, his logic sound, but she so hated the pink frilly things he put her in. It was bad enough having the body of an eleven year old for all eternity, she shouldn't have to dress like one too. She changed into a black shift dress and a deep purple cloak, slipping her trusty knife into one of the deep pockets. Feeling much better, and wanting to get her mind off Akuuz and his mystery, she took a little trip to the torture chambers to visit some family.

"Is she awake?" She asked the guard posted outside of her mother's cell.

"She is, Miss. We haven't been in yet today."

"Perfect, she'll be coherent then." She motioned for the guard to unlock the door, which he did without question. Delilah had made a deal with the demon to whom she had given her mother's soul. Only he and Delilah would be allowed to enter the cell, and he must never, ever, offer to set her mother free. It was standard practice to torture humans until they agreed to become a demon themselves, and replace their own soul in the cell with many others. As far as Delilah was concerned her mother did not deserve such compassion, and would suffer the torment she had inflicted on her only daughter for eternity.

She stepped inside and let the guard close and lock the steel door behind her. The doors were thick and heavy, though there was little chance of any escape attempt. Her mother hung in the middle of the room, wrists shackled together and winched up so high that her toes just barely grazed the floor. She was a bloody mess, and though her cuts had all healed, her clothes hung in rags off her body. One of the greatest joys of the brutes who tormented the souls was that they would simply heal up as good as new within a day, all ready to have the pain inflicted on them again.

"Hello Mother, did you miss me?" Delilah smiled and stepped over to the brightly burning fire so that her mother could see her. She hadn't been to visit in months, far too busy with her work and training. She only ever visited when she wanted to make herself feel better, get a distraction from whatever mysteries or miseries this life had thrown at her.

"Delilah is that you?" Her mother croaked, lifting her head just a few inches to look at her little girl. She'd been here such a long time, almost twenty years in Underworld time, she couldn't really remember how she'd got here. Delilah liked to remind her now and then.

"Yes mother, I've come to visit you. Are you liking the home I got for you?" She stoked the fire with a poker that leaned against the wall next to it. She had no intention of using it, but she loved to see the fear spark in her mother's eyes at the sight of the flames rising up and spitting.

"You put me here?" She asked, confused. She tried to remember, but all she could remember was pain and suffering. Fire and cold, sharp steel. She'd been burned and sliced into until she was but a shell. Yet every night they left her alone, and returned the next to repeat the process. Why did they do this to her? What had she done?

"Yes mother, don't you remember?" Delilah picked up the poker and swung it from side to side as she started slowly walking around the room. She stayed a good two metres away from her mother, never one to underestimate a target, even one chained up and bloody. "You sold my soul to a demon, and when I found out, I came to return the favour."

"Oh" Delilah watched as her mother concentrated really hard. She could see when a fleck of recognition appeared, and that sparked the return of memory. "You did this to me. Why?" She sounded so weak, so pathetic. It pleased Delilah to see her this way. She was a deeply vengeful soul.

"Because you did it to me first. You deserve this, mother. Don't forget that." Delilah smiled, finished her circle of the room, and replaced the poker.

"Yes, yes I deserve this." Her mother mumbled, her head dropping back down to her chest as the conversation wore her out. "I deserve this." She whispered again, eyes closing. Satisfied with her work, Delilah knocked on the door for the guard.

"Goodbye mother, see you again soon." She chirped as the door opened and she stepped outside. She was in much brighter spirits when the door slammed closed and the lock clicked into place behind her.

"See you again in a few months, Miss?" Asked the guard, though they both knew she didn't keep a schedule for visits.

"Oh quite likely, yes. Take good care of her for me until then won't you?" She grinned wickedly at the guard, and he snickered back at her.

"Aye, Miss. The best care." He assured, and Delilah smiled and whistled to herself as she skipped away. Time to find out what in hell Akuuz had to tell her.

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As she walked and thought about past events, Delilah found herself heading toward the market place. She liked it here, one could wander around the outskirts and listen in on conversations without ever being noticed if one knew how. She knew how, and she was very good at it. She was alone, unseen, but still a part of the life that buzzed all around in this dark, sooty, stifling world around her.