It was only Wednesday, but then again, what was he waiting for? By all accounts it was Hump Day; the best day of the week! The term was used to explain the climbing of the proverbial hill to get through the rest of the week. After all, once Hump Day was done, the weekend was closer. Still, Myk only focused on the name which tickled his school-boy maturity and had him laughing at his own reflection. Well, reflection wasn’t the right word. Myk had his laptop perched on his bare thighs; the whirring heat of the machine making his ivory skin slowly poach while pewter eyes found their match in the 15” screen. That front facing camera was certainly worth its weight in gold. Not only did it help him feel normal again, but it petted his vanity; Myk was mewling like a milk-drunk kitten over the return of his reflection. Since he had made plans to meet up with Dawn this evening, he should have been making himself look pretty. Dawn was the only person that Myk struggled to hold a candle to when it came to fashion after all. She was gorgeous, with alabaster skin, bone-white hair, tanzanite eyes and a petite figure, allowing her to pull off the most fantastic and provocative outfits. Myk was jealous of the Blood Thief in so many ways. In fact, their tastes – and their appearances – were so similar that if they were to switch genders, they would undoubtedly just swap exteriors. Of course it was mandatory then for Myk to get pretty in order to meet with his
twin, but he just didn’t feel all that pretty tonight.
“Do you think I have some sort of sickness?” Myk asked the air, hoping that one being between the black cat and the invisible Wraith would bother to answer.
There was no way of telling if Rutherford was even here with him tonight, so pewter eyes traversed the hills and valleys of the duvet he was sat upon to look at Cat expectantly. As it happened, she seemed to not be feeling all that pretty either. Myk watched with a certain sense of resentment as her small pink tongue pecked at and lathered over glossy black fur. She paid absolutely no mind to him, as if he was as much a Wraith as Rutherford. After a while, the Telepath released a desperate sigh and turned his focus back to the screen.
“Why, of course you have a sickness, young master,” came the thrumming voice of Rutherford out of the ether, causing Myk to jump slightly.
“You are positively batty.”
Of all the Vampires in all of the world, why had Myk been so lucky as to summon one with an accent straight out of Downton Abbey?
“That’s rude,” the Telepath hissed, his usually anonymous accent picking up a London twang. Myk didn’t bother to look around the room to make eye-contact with an invisible force; instead he focused on back-combing his hair into a puff-ball.
“And that’s not what I meant.”
Hearing the sigh on the end of the clown’s tone, the Wraith adjusted his approach.
“Then whatever did you mean, young one? I am afraid, even in life, I was not capable of reading minds as you are.”
Rutherford was certainly chatty lately. Myk raised a brow at the thought, but let it go no further as he had to come up with a response.
“I don’t read minds,” Myk said proudly, tending to one bothersome tress of white hair in particular that just would
not stand straight.
“And anyway, I just meant that I feel…”
“Lonely?”
“No.”
“Foolish?”
“No.”
“Like a poodle, perhaps?”
Myk growled, pewter eyes lifting from his own reflection to glare at the surrounding space. Of course he saw nothing, and with no channel for his rage, he slumped back against the padded headrest of his bed. Myk did, however, feel the air by his ear waver as Rutherford laughed to himself.
“You are so lucky you are already a ghost,” the Telepath hissed once more.
“Well,” Rutherford nearly crooned, his quiet, honeyed voice far more disturbing than any clever retort.
“This state certainly does have its benefits…”
Myk stopped what he was doing. There was something in the Wraith’s voice that begged for his attention. A cold chill of anticipation crept up Myk’s back as he turned toward his left – where he’d heard the voice most strongly – and sent a leer in the Wraith’s presumed direction.
“What exactly do you mean by that, Rutherford?” Myk asked, grinning so that his wolfish teeth gleamed proudly in his mouth.
“Have you been using your invisibility to sneak into young maiden’s houses and watch them undress?”
The air in the room changed dramatically in that instant. The silence clouded Myk’s small pink ears like a stuffing of cotton wool and despite how his jaw ached from sustaining that scarlet smile, Myk was elated.
“You are atrocious,” Myk laughed, turning back to his appearance in the screen of his laptop.
“Such a perverse ghost I have summoned.”
“If that is where young master’s thoughts skip to immediately, I should think it is you and not I who is the atrocious one.”
“That’s true,” Myk said offhandedly, yet grinning wide.
“Peeping on women is the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to my perversions…”
“Yes,” Rutherford seethed, biting back the venom.
“Quite sick indeed.”
Resigned to put their pointless bickering to bed, Myk returned his full focus to his appearance. Content with his hair, with the way it defied gravity in what was effectively a lion’s mane atop his head and around his shoulders, Myk addressed his features with pursed lips. With a light touch of foundation to perfect his cashmere skin and a stroke of mascara to make his eyes sparkle, Myk was happy with his make-up too. The only thing left to consider was his outfit for the evening, causing an instinctual glance down at himself. In nothing more than his underwear – white briefs that were little more than a second-skin over his nether regions – he smirked with the thought that perhaps it wasn’t only maidens at risk of being peeped on by the skulking Wraith. For once he just wished that he could see Rutherford, for Myk always wondered if the ghost had a face, and if he could make that face twist into a sneer or grimace. Judging by the Wraiths Myk
could see, however, it was unlikely that Rutherford would be different. They were little more than shadowy apparitions; whatever features they possessed in life were now claimed by darkness. Myk sighed at the thought, up until he remembered what had happened to Revyia and how she had been revived. Myk canted his head to the left again and decided to quiz Rutherford on this subject.
“If I could… bring you back to flesh and bone… would you want that?”
The voice coming from the Telepath was meek and barely a rumble of sound, like the distant purr of a lawnmower from half a block away. Pewter eyes stared into the whiteness of the room, first idly and then with his whole body turning to greet the vacant space around him. Myk wasn’t sure why he expected things would suddenly change, that he would be able to blink and then suddenly look upon a ghostly figure. Upon seeing nothing and hearing nothing though, Myk had to assume that Rutherford had simply vanished again. The Telepath was aware of a great many invisible forces, but he never did know where the Wraith ran off to. Also, when he questioned it, Rutherford would conveniently disappear. So perhaps the truth was that the Wraith never left Myk, but just pretended that he did, because he could get away with it. Rutherford was a strange character, rather fitting for the clown who had summoned him, so Myk was willing to be lenient and not push too far. If Rutherford did not want to chat, then Myk respected his privacy.
The Telepath turned back to what he was doing, closing the lid of the laptop so that Cat wouldn’t use it as her new cushion. Myk got up from the bed and addressed the very white wardrobe, matching the very white room, but he didn’t pull out a very white outfit. Myk pulled out a pair of stonewashed and fashionably ripped, slim-cut jeans and paired them with a decidedly low V-neck vest top, a customised leather jacket, and a pair of studded combat boots. The vest top was white and purposefully over-sized, showing much of his ivory flesh and toned physique. The vest was not plain, however, and featured a spray-paint design on the front; red with black overlay spelling out:
Je Suis Sous Le Charme, meaning
I’m in love/under a charm. As for the leather jacket, which had a military cut, the customisations included a pair of handcuffs – halved and looped to the shoulders – as well as armbands on the sleeves – red on the left, grey on the right – and many silver badges, chains, and dangling pendants. Myk felt more Rock ‘n’ Roll than pretty, and he was very happy with that. The Telepath completed his
outfit with a few more accessories – leather studded wristbands, a chunky belt buckle, rings and a red bandanna looped around his trousers too, just in case.
Going out with Dawn meant that Myk didn’t feel the need to take any weapons with him tonight. They were to meet at the 8th Dimension Mall, a place the Telepath knew well for being a labyrinth; he would have to stick to her side like a symbiotic twin so he didn’t lose her in the crowds. Dawn stood out as much, if sometimes not more so, than the Telepath did so he probably wouldn’t have any trouble finding her. Myk smiled fondly at the thought of how utterly charming they would look together, how passers-by might pause to ask themselves whether these two were lovers, siblings or both. Still, this would only be a small part of the fun for the Telepath, who was looking forward to picking Dawn’s brain about a whole list of topics. Of course, the shopping element of their night-out was going to be fun too, and maybe later on they could find a club to visit for a few drinks, and at the end of the night – if there was any night left – they could go back to her place and have a sleepover. Myk couldn’t very well invite her back to the Ivory Tower and since he spent zero time on his boat for little other than mess-making, it remained to be Dawn’s responsibility on where they would end their fun night out.
Although the Telepath wasn’t aware of it, he was being followed. As he reached the foyer of the gigantic mall – so gigantic in fact that there was a freaking Aquarium housing a shark inside – Myk spotted Dawn bent over at the knee addressing and even hugging a small child. Pausing for a moment, concealing himself behind the fish tank, Myk watched the exchange curiously. Pewter eyes passed from the child, to Dawn and then to the mother as the little girl skipped off. For a moment, the Telepath was enchanted by the look of disgust on the young woman’s face as she dragged her daughter off, but mostly his thoughts had him concerned for the child’s well-being. Why a child of that age was out in a mall this late at night instead of being tucked up in bed was beyond him. Eventually though, Myk pulled his attention away from this wayward family and looked upon the platinum-haired Siren. Myk thought he might have saw sadness and want in those creamy-white expressions, saw maternal yearning in those sparkling blue eyes – he couldn’t wait to question it. Breaking from his hidey-hole, which really wasn’t all that effective since it was clear glass and water, Myk approached Dawn with a Cheshire Cat grin.
“Didn’t know you liked children,” he said in a very muted tone, more as an observation than anything else.
“Feel free to mother me whenever you want.”
There was a wink then, suggesting something perverse or cheeky, and the Telepath moved forward to offer an embrace. Myk was happy that Dawn was as friendly as he was, and affectionate too. She didn’t seem to mind a quick squeeze from time to time. She might have been almost a foot shorter than Myk – the crown of her head just brushing his shoulder height – but Myk found that charming in females.
