Live or Let Die

It had been possibly the longest day of Jack's life.

It had started off with an early morning meeting with a very irritable and short wizard who had been brought in for illegal cockatrice fighting. The poor creatures were falling apart when she found them and she had lost two that morning to internal injuries that the Healers could not stop. And then the man had the audacity to shout at her and demand she pay for the creatures. And when he had shoved her, it gave her the greatest pleasure to have an excuse to punch the guy.

Then it was paperwork until lunch. A brief, skimpy lunch and then off to Weasley’s for complaining customers. Andy was off on vacation and Kirsty had called in sick. The assistants had school so they were no good, so Jack had to go in and help Gary run the crowded hours before dinner. But she had no time for dinner. She received an owl from Walter, the bartender at Satan’s, (sorry, I named him xD) saying that it was a crowded night and they were understaffed. Without eating, she apparated to the nightclub she now temporarily owned.

Every time she walked in, her eyes flicked away from the booth she had become accustomed to looking at. So familiar, so resonant. It seemed to be the owner’s booth and no one sat there, often leaving it as the only place for Jack to take her break, making it painstakingly clear she had filled in for the cranky poltergeist. Even though Vito had been mysteriously absent for awhile, the thoughts around that booth still remained- it was Vito’s favorite booth, the one he always sat at, and no one wanted to be the fool to be found sitting in it when he returned.

If he ever returned.

Jack tried not to think like that. She doubted she could survive going on this long with the three jobs, all as the head honcho. On top of that, she had the added duties of a reputation she had to cultivate, three hungry pets at home, and the Order to think about. Though she would never admit she wanted Vito back to know where he was and that he was okay, she would admit it would be nice to hand over the keys of Satan’s to him.

Though she might hold onto a copy. Just in case.

Walter glanced up as Jack entered and held up a hand, spinning a bottle before pouring it out for the crowd around him. Jack and Walter had been the only reason Satan’s had not gone under; Walter had been opening up and closing apparently every night before Jack heard Vito was absent. Of course, this was all half hearted and in the hopes that it would close on its own. He had been disgruntled when Jack took over, but the improved treatment and lack of threats had caused Walter to be reinvigorated in his work. He asked for more hours, received more tips (all of which Jack allowed him to keep) and he was even known to crack a joke or two.

Walter was not the only change. A new DJ had been hired, a sketchy little Slytherin boy by the name of Kendall Rookwood, and Jack had been less strict with the staff, though maintaining the usual standards of Satan’s. However, dancers dressed in more appropriate clothing (though most continued to wear skimpy outfits) and the maids were given a little bonus, out of Jack’s own pocket. Satan’s was back to normal, just with a smiling staff.

At first, Jack had turned every time the door opened, expecting to see Vito come storming in, livid with the changes. Every time someone tumbled down the stairs, she thought it was Vito, in a drunken stupor, confused by the camaraderie between Jack and his bartender. Every time someone pulled her aside, she supposed it was Vito, with an amused expression ready to tease her to kingdom come.

But every time it was not, every time she relaxed. And as she relaxed, the least she expected Vito to return. And the least she expected Vito to return, the more she tried to ignore it. But how could he be gone? How could she not know what had happened to him? She figured… She supposed… She had the right to know. Didn’t she?

These thoughts were not in her head tonight though. There was far too much to be done. She checked into the employee break room to see who had punched in today, who had failed to report. She scrawled down the names and slipped the paper in hr pocket, reminding herself to send them owls. She ran into one of the dancers who needed her paycheck and Jack handed it over before she went upstairs and checked to see that all the rooms were clean and empty- save for room three which a dancer informed her had been purchased for the night. She failed to peer through the peephole in Vito’s room as she had initially done; she knew there was nothing to see.

She headed back down and went behind the bar, opening up the till and beginning to do her checking. She knew it was busy and Walter needed help, but the till had to be checked; there had been plenty of robbery attempts since she had taken over. None successful, fortunately. But God forbid she cost Vito a cent. No, she had done well, had even been profitable. Not that she thought it would end up mattering anyway.

The last breath of blood-heavy evening air that he had drawn had long since been expelled from his being. For that evening had been his last; the hours during which he had partaken in his grandest ever feast. It had been then when he had risen higher than ever before, tearing from fewer less than a hundred souls their every existence. In the nature of a reaper, he had prepared the offerings for himself – an ocean of blood, and a yard of bones that had stretched easily across the city in which these festivities had taken place. But the moment had been stolen from him swiftly. He had fallen from his mighty thrown of decomposing flesh into an endless abyss of nonexistence, and he had gone.

Vito did not awake in the manner which he had grown accustomed to. No longer did the cool touch of his human encasing welcome him back to the land of the living after his momentary period of rest. Nor did he feel against himself the silk sheets of which he had grown particularly fond, which made his charm-perfected mattress. For he had not 'awoken'. Once more, he had become.

A veil which had rid of all his physical faculties had been cast over Vito; a looming shadow which prevented him from obtaining the comfort of the pressure of the world against his previous vessel, or the glitter of adoration cast in his direction by watching eyes.

The desire for this contact quickly become one which Vito did not believe he could withstand for any longer. But with the attempt to identify his surroundings, Vito was greeted by nothing other the black. The highly held Vito Dee Symons had been presented with no other path of action than to wander aimlessly in the nothingness, in search of anything with a silhouette. Objects rarely presented themselves when he found himself in this position, unless an indisputable bond had been formed between said portion of the mortal world and himself during his time spent under the terms of one creator.

Immediately, a single word occurred to Vito. A title which would forever be scrawled in his lazy handwriting across the surface of his existence: Satan’s. A nightclub in Knockturn Alley which had taken on the role of his first place of residency – home, asylum, kingdom – since he had been exorcised from the Borley Rectory. It would act as a bridge. For Vito had never before found himself so sentimentally attached to one particular place. Surely, something of him had been left within that sinful location. A reflection upon a mirror; the smallest glint of his true form caught within a sheet of glass. A portion of his energy, drifting upon cigarette smoke and bass beats. Jaquellene Dyllan.

With his increasing attention paid towards the memory of the evenings he’d spent in Satan’s, an image of an all-too-familiar booth materialized with the shimmer of a hallucination. A faint light danced across the scene before him, one which gave Vito the feeling that he was in the presence of another form of life than his own. He moved forth; not a step, or the slow swaying of overconfident hips – but the simple motion of growing nearer to something. But the image gave a mighty sigh and it contorted, taking on another form. And Vito was shown another, easily recognizable room; his bedroom. The maroon and purple hues which he’d once dusted across that extravagant room now stood out in stark contrast against the dark infinity that had swallowed him; like a beacon, beckoning him forward.

Until, alas the image enveloped him, and he found himself no longer in the presence of his nightmare. Vito Dee Symons had returned. And directly to his thrown, no less.

Jack counted the money, her fingers deftly folding the money in a way they had not before. Money had never mattered much to Jack; she had never had any. How could she understand the importance of something she had so easily lived without for such a long time? But this money was her responsibility, and her careful handling of it had grown into a skill. She glanced up to see a man ogling the money. “Back off, pal,” she warned in an even tone.

The door opened and a dancer slipped in, attempting to tiptoe passed Jack. “Rhonda. This is the third time.” Rhonda pouted out her lips and began to argue in a whiny voice. Jack pushed the drawer of the till in and locked it, slipping the key into her pocket before moving around the bar to confront the dancer. Rhonda had continued her bad behavior despite Jack’s mercy and Jack had just about had enough of it now. She refused to put up with it.

“Rhonda. I told you twice now. Two warnings. This is your third strike. I’m docking your pay.” Rhonda’s gum fell out of her mouth. ”What!? Are you kidding me? I have been working here for three years and you think-” Jack shook her head. Why the hell was she dealing with this? Why was she here, in this night club, being chewed out by a trampy freeloader?

She should have been at home, her feet propped up. Her three pets all curled up around her, a bowl of popcorn in her lap, a soda in her hand, and a movie blaring in the background. She could have been at The Three Broomsticks with her Ministry coworkers, shooting the breeze and actually making friends. She could have gone to that party her employees from Weasley’s was throwing, the three people she got along with most… But here she was.

When Vito got back, she would give him a peace of her mind.

Rhonda was going on and on, bringing up the fact that she was dating a Death Eater and was having an affair with a Ministry employee and she could easily make Jack’s life hell or whatever. Jack’s hands went up to her head to rub her temples, when suddenly-

A lightening bolt flashed down her forehead, tearing it open right at the center, light bleeding out and blinding her. She stumbled back and shoved Rhonda away. Rhonda took this as a win and ran off to the break room, leaving Jack to stumble back and fall down at her booth. She clawed at her chest, trying to breathe, but it felt as though someone had put their mouth against her and sucked all of the air right out of her passageway.

She fumbled with her wand and cast a quick invisibility charm, saving herself and her reputation. She gasped and thrashed in the booth, clambering at the table. Finally she sat up and reached over to the table over, grabbing a glass of water and gulping it down, causing the customer to shriek in surprise. She dropped the glass which rolled away. She sat up, and realized her hair was beginning to dampen and her hands were shaking and clammy.

She felt one last shiver run down her spine and she shook her head. The charm had worn off in her fit, or whatever it had been. She shook again and suddenly heard a voice hitting her brain like a cannon. She looked up to Walter dropping in front of her. His words came to her like it was cutting through a wall of cotton. She shook her head. “No. I’m not okay.”

It was upon a bolt of searing light that Vito arrived; a grand force of electricity and static charge, which split through the air with the crackling of an ongoing storm. A force which should have been frozen in place, immortalizing that particular moment in history; his return, due to the abrupt drop in temperature that had immediately followed. He had forgotten in his previous state of agony the magnificence of many aspects of his true form. While he spied upon the partially shattered mirror on the further side of the room with longing and envy, he still could not deny the relief that flooded him as he unwound himself. Much in the way that human muscles popped, slid, and creaked with the stretching of one’s limbs, Vito moved; shifting until he felt as content as was possible in his predicament.

It was the shrill shriek of a woman on the floor below that awoke Vito from his reluctantly silent musings. The lips from which the exclamation of fear fell, he did not recognize; their pitch was not of any voice he knew. An ordinary customer, perhaps; startled by the commotion that he had made. It was also in the realm of possibility that the scream had originated from one of the nightclub’s many female employees; he heavily favored the hiring of the opposite sex as that of his usual vessel, after all. Satan’s was littered with the scantily dressed women. He would not have paid the issue further mind as he moved in the direction of the mirror, with a sense of disappointment settling in his core at the sight of a calm pane of glass, hadn’t a familiar tone reached him. The defiant young voice of a mop-headed ginger was not capable of going undetected by Vito, even amongst the noise-polluting pulse of the music that rang throughout the club. Jack had infused herself with his every waking memory. She could not be purged from his subconscious.

And the thought of being reunited with said troublesome creature had resulted in just the drive that Vito had needed in order to carry on. There was now a goal to be reached: to obtain a suitable host, and to reclaim the life that he had so self-righteously stolen to beginning with.

The first floor: the spiral staircase, that infamous booth, which stood out amongst the many occupied tables and shadow-infested corners by which it was surrounded, the bar, the overpowering scent of nicotine in the air, and the brilliant shade of blood upon pale skin. The sight before him was almost welcoming in a sense, despite the blatant sign that had been painted across his Monster’s forehead, which proceeded to make a chaotic mess of Vito’s every thought. It was ‘pleasantly reassuring’; the knowledge that such things had not changed while he had served what had felt like an eternity in his personal hell.

Vito turned himself away from the sight of Jack’s wound. Instead, his attention landed heavily on a male bartender whose face had suffered on multiple occasions the effect of the equation: wine bottle projectile + rage + face = awkwardly placed bandages. The man never had served much of a purpose to Vito, other than the role that he’d played as an outlet for Vito’s anger. He was in every essence of the word, expendable.

With no other objective in mind than to make his presence known – for, there truly was no greater purpose, or time well spent – Vito neared the bartender. The crystallized chill that trailed along the floor beneath him subtracted notably from his element of surprise, but such trivial matters did not occupy Vito’s thoughts as he reached for, and tightened his hold around Walter’s average frame. At once, the man began to struggle within his grasp, giving him the appearance of a fish flip-flopping against the dock to which it’d been thrown. But Vito had little patience for fishing, and he needed no further prompting to continue on and gut his catch. With a great tug in no particular direction, the sound of breaking bone, tearing tissue, and a dying human being’s desperation, Vito tore from Walter his every limb in what may have appeared to be an explosion of blood to all those unknowing of the poltergeist in the room.

Thick spurts of the substance slathered their booth, the floors, the ceiling, and every other surface within that portion of Satan’s. It did not burden Vito, to see his haven in such disarray. On the contrary, Vito favored the smell and the feel of that sticky-warm, metallic ‘paint’. No matter the fact that no mess that was made within the nightclub was taken care of by himself. And so, it was with this same outlook that Vito outstretched himself towards the table that accompanied their booth, and he began to write in his wicked script within the blood that had pooled there. When he had finished, and he was satisfied with his masterpiece, it read: Honey, I’m home.

Walter's hand came up to Jack's forehead and stuck there, pasted there by her blood. She blinked, blood dripping into her eyes. The bartender raised his wand and muttered a few words and Jack hissed as she felt her skin begin to stitch together. He murmured more and the blood evaporated from her face, fading into the air. She was gasping for air now, it stung her lungs but the relief she felt at being able to breathe kept her gasping in the air with short, painful breaths.

"What happened, then?" Walter asked. "C'mon, Jack, what happened?" Jack felt the room slowly start to stop spinning, starting to right itself. She shook her head and wet her lips as though she were ready to speak, but she found she could not. Her throat was dry and her mouth itched. She swallowed a few times, licking her lips, and managed to shake her head.

Honestly, she had no idea what had caused the fit. There was that rush of light and pain and... an overwhelming amount of life. As though a part of her had been born and had forced itself into her, and that pain had nearly torn her in half to make room. The new life took all of her air and then it left her, left her without the knowledge of how to breathe, to swallow, to continue. Left her out of control.

But it had left her. And yet, she felt it. It was there, like the hum of florescent lights. It was there, like the vibrations of a passing train. It was there, like the pounding of bass from the house next door. It was there, the phantom itch after you flick a spider from your arm. She knew that whatever had caused her outburst was gone, but she knew that it lingered. She just didn't know how close. And that was what scared her.

"Jack?" She looked up and met the gaze of Walter. And that was when she realized; this man was a friend. Or very close. Her issues mattered to him. Her pain was his concern. She was his boss but they had worked together, and he saw her as some sort of savior and now he needed to save her. She could only think of one thing to say. Thank you. He cocked his head. He had not heard her; no words had actually come out. She opened her mouth and he touched her forehead.

Suddenly, his whole body went rigid, and then, Jack was sprayed with blood and thrown backwards. She held something in her arm and when she looked down, she saw Walter's arm. She rolled over and retched, shaking. There was screams and a stampede for the door, people flying out of the night club- customers and employees alike. And Jack wanted to be in their number.

She turned and the room shrunk into a tiny box. The words burned into her eyes. She had been expecting relief on his return. Not more hell. She could not respond. She could not... She could not... "Walter!" she gasped. She threw herself onto the table. "BASTARD." She gasped and looked around. A shimmer. She had to leave. She had to leave. She had to.

She turned and ran for the door, shoving people towards the door. The bouncer ran towards her and she shoved him out the door. Rhonda was calling and Jack pointed. Jack looked around and knew she could not risk it. She was in trouble. They all were. She pushed her way into the crowd, intent on leaving, forgetting her neer-run-away philisophy.

But a chill gripped her and she stopped cold. She was jostled every which way and slowly turned. Like ice, like lead, she lifted her feet and moved them opposite the flow. She escaped the stampede and she walked like a zombie back to the booth, sitting down at it. She waved her wand and the pieces of Walter rolled themselves up into a tablecloth. Jack sat at the booth, waiting.

Vito was home.

Had Vito possessed the physical being required to do so, he surely would have extended his arms at his sides in an arrogant display of his pride in himself at the sight of Jack’s hasty retreat. For, with no simpler the act than committing the murder of a single man, Vito had achieved in a mere minute what he had not been capable of during the many years which he had been acquainted with Jack Dyllan. He had inflicted such a level of fear upon her as to drive her from his presence, and the power behind such an act was intoxicating. He longed with a fierceness that threatened to set him alight to step forth, and to tear through the veil, exposing himself with a perfect quirk of his lips to his creator. To bathe the flawless flesh of his hands in blood - oh, how he desired it. The sight of it alone would have sent a pleasurable shiver coursing through him.

But his victory had been short lived. No sooner than she had fled from his sight had she returned, sulking as she situated herself in one booth in particular, which had acted as a catalyst in the series of events that had followed the fateful evening during which they had claimed the table as their own. He mimicked her movements derisively; a display of irony which she was incapable of appreciating at the present time. And with several fluent slip-slide motions through the puddle of blood that had formed upon the smooth tabletop, Vito scrawled his next statement. In the deepest shade of red, he wrote: What ever is the matter, Mrs. Monster? Has what you have created given you a scare? With such raw resentment did he communicate through that crimson mirror, that his voice could nearly be heard, his words spoken from smirking lips.

He was truly a creature of habit.

Jack sat shivering, tremors she could not control going up and down her body in waves. This was not the way this was supposed to happen. He was supposed to return and relieve her of this place, to relieve her of her worry for him. He was not supposed to return and bring back all of the terror, bring back all of the guilt, bring back the personal hell that Vito had caused her. She felt her world shrinking in around her, pressing her so that there was no room for anything but herself and Vito; his hatred, her guilt.

Jack reached up, pressing a hand against the side of her face. Both her hand and her face were pale and cold. Her head was sticky with Walter's blood. She calmly reached up and pointed her wand at her forehead, relieving the clammy skin of her friend's blood. Her breathing was still shallow but she put up a great effort to regulate the rise and fall of her chest at a normal rate.

A movement caught her eyes and she looked towards the mess, keeping her eyes hooded and her cheeks pursed, holding back all emotion. People were still shuffling out, pushing and shoving and screaming. And here Jack sat. She owned the night club. It was her responsibility to stay behind, to face the hell unfolding. A captain always goes down with their ship.

She watched the words form and she let that hit her. What she had created. A scare. Mrs. Monster. She pushed off the waves of guilt. No. Not this time. She would not be taken over. "This is not my doing," she said. She would not be blamed. She had saved Satan's, given it hope, cared for it. She would not be blamed for the murder of her friend after she helped Vito. "This is you. I am not the monster."

Below his previous line, Vito’s handwriting was once more to be found. With every stroke, more blood was wiped clean from the surface, forming letters which did not belong – which could not belong by the laws of the nature of the mortal world. Vito was the gray which separated the black and the white of the beliefs of mortals. He was a pure manifestation of the dominant emotions that Jack experienced, a truth which he was eternally quick to remind the child of. Have you forgotten my terms of use, Dollface? I am your anger. I bat for the devil on your shoulder. You are entirely at fault. he wrote.

He reclined some inches backwards in the manner of a human being, out of habit - only to decide that he was not entirely content with his phrasing of the words “terms of use”, and to return to his previous proximity to his canvas. The term was undignified in its least concentrated form, and the error was one which haunted Vito as he reexamined what he had said. Quick to correct himself, Vito smeared a new coat of blood over those three words, and replaced them with a new set, which he felt more better represented his view of himself. - the terms of your crossroads deal? he revised, before moving several inches further across the table.

I take it you have made yourself at home? He noted, referring to the condition of his beloved nightclub. A comment which he was well aware would prevent the risk of her untimely departure. She had grown fond of Satan’s, much in the manner that he had, over time. Her sentimentality towards the place had not gone unnoticed. On the contrary; had he the capacity, he could very well have smelt on Jack her devotion towards Satan's. It had occurred to him when he had laid eyes on the redhead, standing in the midst of his home, that Jack had been responsible for its survival. She had protected his kingdom from harm.

His movements slowed to a near-halt, as though it had abruptly begun to pain him to continue to write, until alas he had punctuated the sentence which he had been so reluctant to produce. You protected it. His script betrayed Vito's hesitance to admit this truth. And yet, it remained. He made no move to swipe his expression of gratitude from the table. He left it be, deciding to simply add on to, rather than to remove what Jack had likely already read. And you killed me.

Jack felt as though she were bound to this booth. Her arms were clamped at her side, palms flat on the seat beneath her, head fixed forward. She considered the possibility that, somehow, Vito had bound her here, to the chair. She felt as though some sort of constraints held her and yet she knew it was not of Vito's doing. Her mind was working against her, forcing her to face these visions with a fixed eye. She lifted her head just a bit, before bowing her elbows, as though to prove she was not tied down.

The words spelled out, the argument she knew he was going to use, the argument she had a sure-fire response to if she could gather the bravery to do it. She blinked, looking down at the words with a flicker of disgust as he amended it, to add more of his own style and flare to it, in his own narcisstic way. "Oh, now you're cool," she whispered. When would he learn, it didn't matter.

"And if that's true, and face, then I suppose it's fact that without me, you are nothing," she said the words without venom, without emotion. Almost as though she were simply drawing a conclusion. She shifted in her seat, bending forward to read the words he spelled out. She took it as a rhetorical question- she would rather not discuss these matters with Vito.

His continued writing turned her stomach to a heavy hunk of ice. This was her fears, that she had been the cause... But... Didn't that mean she was free? Shouldn't her servering of the tie be a success, a triumph? How had she done it? But she could not ask these questions. "I'd do it again," she said coldly. "Both. I would do it a million times over."

What was she trying to accomplish? She hadn't planned on being murdered that night, but she was getting close.

Her every response was an expression of disrespect. With a threat upon an insult, she welcomed him. And thus, Vito concluded with ease that she was entirely unaware of the torture which she had inflicted upon him. While she had walked the Earth in the comfort of her favorite pair of trainers, he had endured his hell. The black, the inability to see or to touch, and the endless darkness in which he had been shackled – to nothing. And at her hand, no less. At once, he desired to inflict upon her an equally unbearable pain.

After a mere moment of silence, one which had been spent looking upon his creator with deep-seeded loathing, he reacted. Vito extended his ever-lengthening reach towards Jack, plunging his being deep into her core. With the grasp of a murderous serpent, he clutched her heart. Simultaneously, he scribbled once more his thoughts within Walter’s blood. Do you feel that, Monster? Can you feel my influence on your existence? He gave the vital organ a forceful pull towards himself, as though to tear it free from her chest. Within himself, he too experienced the horrendous effect of his actions. But he did not falter, for he had endured far worse, and the vivid memory of his anguish remained fresh in his mind.

You have forgotten your place, Jack. You possess no more power over me than I do over you. His threat was clearly stated, though inaudible: Vito had not returned with the intent of being treated in such a way by a naive, emotional child. She no longer held the upper hand.