Lysander found the haunted house deeply deeply unsettling. The dusty grey wood and strange winding hallways didn’t seem to follow natural laws and there were times he could swear that even the dimensions of the place didn’t follow the expected rules of the world with rooms opening larger than should have been possible without regard for the dimensions of where he’d been. It spooked him, setting him on edge. There was something about the otherworldly between which reminded him of a story someone in his work had told him about a book called House of Leaves where a normal looking house stretched off into some other strange place where logic dictated it could not be. He wished he’d brought Roswell, certain that the other man’s practical leaning would keep him on a clear path through the house and back to where they’d come from. Instead he was on his own and at no time in his life had decisions made on his own initiative led him anywhere but astray.
He realised with a slow sickening feeling that he had no idea how to get back out. He’d not left any sort of trail to follow or any sort of guide to find his way back to the way he’d come in. Panic surged in his chest until his crisis was mitigated by Herald who spoke up.
<
This relaxed him again, the cold chill of panic fading as quickly as it had come. What had been for a moment a prison was now once again an adventure to explore.
He was alone here, there hadn’t been a single soul for over an hour and he wasn’t sure there would be. The hunter he’d spoken to at the entrance had told him that most of the time you didn’t meet anything, that it was a good way to get fit without peril. He hoped that was the case as he made his way through a sequence of delipidated great halls with tables covered with ominous sheets to protect from the dust. This part of the house had a feeling of a grand palace left long unused, colours fading and grandeur flaking away as they were ravaged by time. His footsteps echoed and all in all the sight before him filled him with a melancholy for grand things gone away for ever.
He didn’t know how long he’d been walking for, room after room unfurling before him when he finally heard a noise.
It was a slow click and clopping sound, followed by a low rustle of something dragged across the floor. He froze, stopping dead and in his panic summoning forth his weapon. He wanted to be brave and demand whatever it was show itself, but he wasn’t brave. Instead he got under one of the covered tables, the cobwebs making his skin crawl but knowing that anything was better than what was coming his way.
He curled up as small as his tall frame would allow, trying not to breathe any louder than he had to and waited. The sounds got closer and finally he could see a huge set of paws, larger than any animal he’d ever seen with huge wicked claws – the source of the clicking – followed up by a sturdy and lethal looking pair of hooves. The rustling was a long long serpentine tail which undulated across the floor behind the beast. It was larger than the largest horse and covered in an almost iridescent silvery fur and black mottled markings.
It looked incredibly dangerous.
All he could hope was that it went along its way, unable to do anything but wait as it reached his hiding place and then stopped.
He couldn’t see its face but he could hear it flick its tongue and then, just when he thought it was going to lunge at him, it spoke.
“I know you are there.” It said, its voice as polite and cordial as any upper class person he’d met at university, utterly out of place with the almost draconic appearance of the thing. “I can feel your heat, I can taste you, you are impossssible to missss.” And it lowered its massive head to look him in the eye with a white slitted one. “You are a hunter.” It said as it got a look at his coat.
“I like hunters.” And the smile reached very far back on its jaw, uncovering rows of razor sharp looking teeth glistening with saliva against black gums. ”And I like something about you.”
The enormous tail slipped under the table and wrapped a tip as strong as a fist around his ankle, pulling him out of his hiding spot and holding him upside down for inspection. He wanted to lash out but part of him also felt that right now starting a fight was maybe the worst thing in the world that he could do, getting the distinct feeling that he was outmatched by the creature in front of him.
This close he could smell its breath and fur, smells which should have been animalistic and unpleasant but which appealed to his senses like the most flattering scent, something musky and primal about them, disarming to an extreme. He relaxed, forgetting why he’d wanted to fight at all, his arms going limp as he gave the creature a solely curious look.
“Your name.” it said.
“Lysander Astoria.” He replied without much hesitation. It quirked another smile.
“I am Zar.” It said. “You are a very interesting human.” And it seemed to consider him carefully before standing him up again the correct way up. Every movement reminded him that that tail was all muscle, aware that as gentle as it had been with him that it could just as easily have cracked his bones with a whim. Oddly, this thought didn’t disturb him as much as it should have and he idly found himself thinking that it probably wouldn’t be so bad.
<
“I think I’m going to help you.” The creature said, the tail around his waist. “Out of the goodness of my heart. I feel like we have something in common you and I. I can practically smell it off you, it’s not like other humans.”
Lysander didn’t say anything, curious more than anything else what a creature like this could offer him.
“I’m going to give you something and you are going to owe me a favour. Just a favour, nothing concrete, something later. I’ve long been curious about hunters, and what sort of things you little creatures can do. What do you say?”
Lysander gave the creature a thoughtful look. Anyone else might have said no, anyone else might have decided this was madness and completely crazy. Anyone else might have told this Zar where to shove it. Lysander was not anyone else, he was in fact a bit greedy and a bit arrogant. He told himself that anything this creature thought it had on him he could outsmart. It was the kind of innate arrogance which had driven him to think that his lawyers could outsmart Deus. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t, it hadn’t dented his determination that it was still possible somewhere far down the line.
“Sure.” he said. “I’ll owe you a favour, I’m not one to turn down a helpful offer from the supernatural.”
There was a jingling of leather and a faint salty smell of the ocean and the creature produced - from who even knew where - a strange set of reins, held loosely in its claws. Its shape wavered and in a breif moment it changed from a monster to something more humanoid, though its tail did not lose its grip even a little.
“Supernatural indeed.” The demon said. “If it is a deal, then we must shake on it.”
“Well a handshake’s only business.” Lysander said and extended his hand. It was taken in a set of long claws and there was a sharp pain on his buttock that was briefly over.
“It’s a deal.” crooned the demon. “I’ll be back to collect my favour when I need it.” And he was handed the reins.
Anyone else might have panicked, might has asked what just happened, anyone else might have been suspicious of making a deal with a demon and what they were now burdened with.
Anyone else was not Lysander.
“Sure.” he said with a big smile. The coils loosened.
“Go try out your new toy.” the silvery skinned creature said. “I have places to be. But I’ll find you again when I need to, Lysander Astoria.”
And with a wink, it turned away, shifting back into the strange goat-like thing and sauntering off on its way, in the opposite direction he’d been going.
It was certainly turning out to be a very, very strange day, he thought to himself, before keeping right on through the house, his new reins clinking quietly in the muffled house.
