Temptation
Lilith smiled and her fangs glistened. "And why, dear heart, would I want to help you?"
Jack looked at his boots, afraid to look anywhere else for fear of the hiding Maeve would give him when he got home. "Look, Lilith..."
"Don't ‘look, Lilith' me. I asked you a question. Or has Maeve taken your wits and hidden them wherever she stores her own?"
"Now, don't you go bringing up Maeve, she ain't got nothing to do with this!"
"Don't bluster, Jack. It's unbecoming for someone of your...stature."
All gravediggers were tall and though Jack wasn't as tall as Jebediah, he still stood head and shoulders above most Aisling. Of course, that wasn't the kind of stature Lilith meant. Jack sighed. She always had loved the formalities of rank.
"Alright, fine. I, Jackson Grimm, psychopompos and Prime Essence of the Gravediggers, do humbly seek and entreat the favor of Her Darkness Lilith, Queen of the Undead and Prime Essence of the Vampiresses. I ask this boon in the name of the Seasons and the Something that was Nothing," he let out a deep breath. "There, happy?"
"Now, was that so hard? Is it so very difficult to indulge me?"
At that, Jack grinned. "Historically, no."
"Now, Jack. No familiarity after so nice a display of protocol." Lilith looked pleased. "So I am to understand you need to move these...what do you call them...masquers, across my territory. No. Absolutely not."
"Now, why not? It won't cost you a thing to let them cross there!"
"It's not about what it will cost me to let them cross, it's what not letting them cross will save me: the attention of your enemy, and his belief that I am sympathetic to your cause. One must maintain appearances, Jack. Even you must understand that." Lilith preened and buffed her nails. She looked bored. "Now, if that's all—"
"No, it isn't all, Lilith! You do sympathize with our cause and—"
"No, I do not. I don't care about your cause or your pathetic little band of monsters. ‘Terata', really dear, why do you think using the old languages makes it sound less silly? You are a fool, and that is why the Prime Essences ridicule you."
"They didn't make fun of me when it came time to build the Gate."
"That doesn't mean they support you. If anything, it means they supported that scientist fellow, Gregory, the one who came up with the thing."
"You didn't make fun of me, either."
"That's different, and you know it," Lilith blinked lazily and smiled. "I did that as a special favor. For you."
Jack looked back down at his boots. "That was a long time ago, Lil."
Suddenly the vampiress exploded from her throne, her face shifting into a fanged visage of horror. "Don't you dare call me ‘Lil'! What does time matter to us? Things are different for us, Jack! Things are forever!"
"You taught me that." Her face softened and flowed back into her normally cold beauty.
"I know. If it means anything to you, I'm sorry."
"I know you are. Every day, I know you are sorry. And every day, I will make you sorrier."
"Lili—"Jack reached his hand out towards her.
"Don't. Just...don't. We are not friends, Jack. We are not even colleagues. I helped you and the others make the Gate, and that's it. If I hadn't been feeling soft-headed that day, I wouldn't have. I will not let you march your army of idiots over my mountains, and if they try I will destroy every single one of them who isn't a Prime Essence. Is that clear?"
Jack sighed. "Yes. I just wish there was a way we could work this out. It doesn't have to be this way."
"Yes it does. I went on to build a life without you. I'm not going to get pulled into a dinner party for you, much less a war."
She turned and looked at him. "Now, get out of my house."
Grim Jack hunched up his shoulders into his long leather coat and began to turn. "Lilith."
"Jack, just..."
"No. You stop. Right now. We got history, you and me, but that only goes so far. I mighta taught you everything you know, but that doesn't mean I taught you everything I know."
He turned back to her and the shadows themselves seemed to flee from his rage. The darkness of a thousand abysses and the screams of a thousand lost souls poured from his eyes and mouth as Lilith cowered before Jack's unleashed power. His form shifted and something else stood where he had been, something...old.
"I was ancient when you were a fantasy in the heart of some frightened child. I am the first fear, the most primal fantasy, the first of the dreams."
"I am death, woman, and don't you dare threaten me."
After Jack left, Lilith lay on the floor, shaking.
I had no clue...the power...the sheer magnitude of his Becoming... Lilith got up and shook the gravedust from her clothes. One of her pets, a dire wolf, came in to the room. Such power cannot be allowed to exist...
Unchecked.
Lilith smiled.
"Leopold! Come here, my sweet. Find me this Technocrat." The wolf looked up at her with strangely intelligent eyes.
"I would speak with him."