Tasìa peeked through the windows to watch Annebél as she rescued the Bowie knife.

The streetwalker started to sing a spirited but oddly worded song as she worked on removing the blade from the wooden seat of the stool.

Annebél retreated with her knife across the parking lot into the smallest of the four buildings. The original door of which had been replaced by a thick hatch. The kind used to enclose large scale freezer units in supermarkets and warehouses.

Annebél unlocked a sturdy chain pulley. After the silvery links whipped into place, the hatch budged open. She retreated inside.

Evidently, she made her home there.

Tasìa stared at the boot pinned down by her stiletto. You did not waste good treated leather. She could repurpose it for a pistol grip or a knife handle.

Or, twist it into the design of a sigil, and put it to fire.

The flow of pattern on the boot reminded her of the whispers of the Wise One in the way his words forced one to untangle a symmetry of underlying meaning.

It took a few minutes to cut the leather of the pair of boots into a flattened material. She stored them in her fanny-pack before she continued deeper into the complex.

Tasìa could tell the vagabonds only made use of the first few rooms near the entrance. At least one of them braved the stairwell into the basement where the generators were kept.

A chemical processor in the basement converted green leaf into an energy-rich oil and pulp by-product.

Bags of leaves lined a storage room beside the stairwell.

Thick electric cables tied to the roof splintered into every direction. No doubt, one led out to Annebél's quarters.

Tasìa walked on past, down an unlit interior corridor with no windows. She slowed down to allow her eyes to adjust. The soft pad of her boots tread delicately on each down trod of her heels.

She expected shit to get weird. Nanospores gathered where there was an absence of light and no circulation of air. The chances that the vagabonds kept the building disinfected beyond their living spaces were unlikely.

There was no comforting scent of Lysol or similar products. Tasìa did catch the whiff of something she did not expect.

Incense similar to the sweet scent of opium. Something else teased her olfactory senses.

Azúcar quemada.

Burnt sugar. A scent she associated with sex. Tasìa's gut clinched as the odors stirred her nether region. She breathed in slowly and tightened and released her toes and fingers.

She needed to get a hold of herself. Something nearby, she suspected, intended her to feel this way, and she wasn't going to let herself get played.

The scents grew stronger as she approached a corner where the corridor turned. Tasìa leaned against a wall and she leaned over for a quick glance into the gray shadows.

Radiant moonlight glowed through the left sidewall. She recalled a conference room with a large window dominated on the other side of the hallway. Just past a door, a pair of small bodies scurried along the rightside wall.

They disappeared down the corridor beyond Tasìa's range of vision.

She drew herself up against the wall and forced herself to relax. She saw what they looked like, but she knew what they really were.

They appeared to be the Black Eyed Ones. Old Gothic mythical creatures. Emaciated adolescents with oily dark hair. They traveled in pairs. Ill-omened beings, now projected as entities by the Cull Spores to frighten people.

This cryptid pairing she had just now witnessed were not those entities, however. She had seen them, but they touched none of her other senses. Merely hallucinations. With clarity of mental vision that calmly endured the ravings of her eyes, Tasìa knew that she now saw them only because of the insanity encroaching her mind.

Tasìa continued down the corridor hall.

On her right was a door done in rich, elaborate decoration. Reinforced patterns in a variance of dark woods curved along the doors enameled surface.

A plaque on it read: Annebél's - Solo Para Amantes Locos

For mad lovers, only.

Tasìa shook her head. So, this is where the big bad bitch took her clientele. The door alone was giving her a more upscale impression than Tasìa thought possible for the low-rent whore.

Tasìa studied the door handle. There was something odd about it. She got on her knees and she brought out a pin light for a better look.

Decorative brass twisted along the length, but that is not what caught her eye. The ring that circled the keyhole gave off a subtle gleam.

Tasìa smiled. This was her old self at work in being able to spot and make sense of critical minutiae most others would miss.

That gleam was a razor-sharp edge that encircled the keyhole.

Annebél's door was trapped. Tasìa aimed the light into the hole. There was a triggering mechanism that would be neutralized if a correctly shaped key was inserted.

It was designed to thwart anyone skilled at picking locks like herself by slicing through their fingers.

Tasìa estimated from the length of the doorknob's non-decorative interior section that the pipe would only spring out by four inches.

She unsheathed the stiletto and she used it to fiddle with the trigger. The razor-sharp pipe popped out. It would have definitely sliced through her knuckles if she had played with the tumblers first.

With the trigger out of place, the tumblers only took her a minute to manipulate open.

When she pushed the door open, a yellow haze dissipated before Tasìa got sight of a boudoir style bedroom. Two twisted glass lamps on matching marble inset tables added to the glow of soft red light.

They were the source of the burnt sugar smell.

A twirl of motions above her caught her eye. It was something quite unique. A mobile made of seven Vatican-style filigree-rich thurible censers that circled around on rods carefully set upon a central edifice.

For a moment, in a repeating pattern, when the censers were positioned to face her, the collective filigree of the seven censers formed a thaumaturgist pentagram.

No simple streetwalker would have a set up like this.

Tasìa realized she may have misjudged the extent of Annebél's intellect. After all, even an intellectual of the Quadra often came across as hyper-violent to members of other cultures. Particularly, those commonly associated with the Salvage.

What other surprises did Annebél have in store for her?

Tasìa caught sight of poster art above the lush bed. The right side of it was of Annebél herself done in nineteenth-century Parisian design.

The left was a quotation from a poem. Oddly in Spanish given the author was Baudelaire. Still, it scanned well.

-Todo esto no vale la terrible maravilla

Tu mordedura de saliva

Quien hunde mi alma sin remordimiento en el Olvido,

Y, llevando el vértigo,

¡El fracaso en las orillas de la Muerte!

-All this is not worth the terrible wonder

Your saliva bite

That sinks my soul without remorse into Oblivion,

And, bearing the vertigo,

Failure on the banks of death!

On an easel by the far wall, Tasìa could see a large sketchbook and an expansive set of watercolors. She walked over to study the sketches. From the stylings of the portrait on the open page, Tasìa surmised Annebél must have painted the faux nineteenth-century print above her bed.

As Tasìa stood there impressed with her rival, a chill ran up her spine. She realized the subject of the sketch was someone intimately familiar to her. The one commonly called the Incubus.

She recalled the dissipating yellow mist she had seen upon her entrance into the chamber.

"Incubus. If you are in here, show yourself."

A new shadow slowly formed in the mirror above a vanity table. Tasìa turned around.

The Incubus sat on the edge of the bed.

"I did not want to divert your attention on what needs to be done most immediately," it said in an apologetic tone.

"I understand," Tasìa answered as she tried not to leer at the creature's beautiful face.

"Perhaps, it is good that you called me out. I may be able to help you. Be wary of that mesmerizing one, Egilona," the Incubus said as it pointed to the words of Baudelaire. "Above all else, she hates to be reminded of the existence of Oblivion. Look on to that dresser. Take that soltera beside the hand-mirror."

A soltera. A device used to both distribute and play a singular album or a set portfolio of a recording artist's work. The flash drive could be switched out, but the soltera's outer designs were custom to a given musician's trademarked logo and design work.

She flicked the device on as she read the title - Las Flores del Mal.

Someone had set the entirety of Baudelaire's book of poems to Spanish grindcore.

"The spirit of nihilism and the constant call to Oblivion is more than she can endure."

"Thank you, Incubus."

"I do have a name. One day I will tell you it, Ms. Tasìa del Alma-Gris, but for now, I must part."

The creature bowed its head and dissipated back into the hellish yellow mist.