The end of the steps opened up into a basement. Another, smaller bar was off to the side. The room was surprisingly vast and dimly lit, and just as crowded as the upper floor. But these clubbers were engaged in an entirely different activity. The smell of sex was ripe and sweet.

They were fornicating. Naked bodies pressed together in a carefully debauched dance, the slick limbs of vis users, all genders, hammering and sighing. A chorus of moans and gasps timed the music to it all, like a depraved ceremonial right to the truly restless and wicked. 

Jackson felt as though he had walked into a court of sinners, and there, at the end of the room, on his high throne, was their king. 

Clio.

The naked bodies of the paranormals fell away. The shock of public sex, diminished. Nothing seemed to matter anymore, apart from the end of the room. The sweaty monsters in the room could have been performing something as ghastly as some ritual seance, slaughtering one another in cold blood, and Jackson would not have been able to focus on a single one of them. Wouldn’t have bat an eye.

Not when his focus narrowed, and held.

Clio sat up on a bench, perched upon a low jazz stage. He leaned back, reclining against the velvet as his eyes swept over the heated scene. Other naked vis users stood around him, though not too closely, as though respectfully afraid to crowd a deity whose feet they were ready to kiss. They simply wanted to be near enough as possible without offending, close enough to at least imagine reaching for their king.

Clio was a vision. The boy had grown since his time at the PCA. He appeared to be in his early twenties, the cusp of manhood. He’d settled into his new appearance as gracefully as a sunset sinks into a sea, though the differences were obvious. The childish, round face had organized its shape into something stricter. The lines of his profile had solidified into careful angles and geometry that, for some reason, appeared even more delicate now that they’d sharpened, than from before, when he was a boy. His blonde hair spilt around his mannish shoulders, a veil that made his appearance seem to glow. Still an angel, then. At least masked in the appearance of one. This point was punctuated by the sharp, protruding horns from atop Clio’s hairline, curling back, the horns of a devilish bovidae. As well, while his wings were kept away, his tail swung behind him, swaying to and fro.

A black, jersey turtleneck and black trousers contrasted the all-white uniform he’d solely worn at the PCA. To see him wear anything else other than the cotton, medicinal-white was jarring. The angel was finally showing his true colors.

Jackson could only stand and watch, as rigid as death, as Clio simply sat. He felt pervasive spying, like one of the lingering creatures around him poised readily to catch even the smallest drop of attention Clio was willing to shed.

He watched carefully, mesmerized, as the boy—no, man—gazed out at the crowd with a bored look, unmoved by the sick display of sexual activity that littered every inch of the basement. He appeared so oddly passive, it made Jackson hesitate. He could see none of the excitable, eager-to-please PCA child from before in this new person. He searched and searched, but everything from the bored expression, to the slouched, uncaring composure, to the dais of sex itself … none of it was familiar. 

Jackson wondered what Clio thought while gazing out at the orgy. Was he disgusted?

Another, more dangerous thought: Was he amorous?

It was only when a man stepped towards Clio—an older vampire, eyes begging for Clio’s attention—that Jackson took his own step closer.

Clio’s eyes shot to Jackson, as though responding to a thought.

Time stood still.

The stare was piercing, more violent than any bullet that could shoot from a tube of metal. The vivid scarlet gleamed at him. No longer could those eyes be associated with the cherry-blossom pink from his past. Instead, these had rouged to a menacing, dark gore. The most disturbing part about them: Jackson couldn't read them. A single flash of bright anger was all he got, and he wasn’t sure he hadn’t imagined it by how quick it had been. Clio’s eyes then returned to the vacant nothingness, void of any outward reaction he could have displayed. Wonder, astonishment, fear, perhaps. Jackson had been perversely hoping for fear.

But Clio revealed nothing. It was savagely disappointing. Even the emotions that stirred in the air, hanging within the same energy that had pulsed into the atmosphere released by Clio, closed off. It was as though someone had snapped a book shut, and Jackson was desperately hanging onto the last words he’d read on the page. 

Jackson slowly became aware that, sometime gradually, the rest of the speakeasy had sluggishly drawn to a pause. Everyone was motionless, now, completely rigid, as all eyes came to rest on him. Even all actions of sex seemed to pause mid-act, startled by a sixth sense.

Every vis user here, all in attendance, were responding to something. They were reacting to the change, easily finding the source of their god’s attention. It was as though Clio, through time and space, had reached out and marked Jackson with a giant, bold flag, reading ‘look here’.

Watching the power behind it all—an incubus at work—was like watching a black hole suck up the sun. 

Finally, after a pregnant pause that lasted centuries, Clio rose. He blinked calmly at Jackson, his gaze heavy-lidded. Then he addressed the crowd that waited upon his every breath and announced, simply, “Kill him.”