Chapter Text
Alastor had always preferred his curiosities unusual.
So when the latest acquisition arrived — a mysterious item delivered from an excavation, unearthed during a recent archaeological dig, discovered in the forgotten depths of some ancient temple or the forsaken ruins of a lost civilization — Alastor’s curiosity was immediately piqued.
The artifact, unknown in its true nature and lost to time, had been dropped into his lap like a gift from the past. Well, more accurately, it had been hauled in with great effort by a procession of beleaguered workers. It was a coffin, but no ordinary funerary vessel. It was a masterpiece of cartonnage, its craftsmanship nothing short of exquisite. Gilded in opulent hues of red and gold, its surface was smoothed to a lustrous sheen by layers of resin, and adorned with infernal inscriptions so intricate, that no living scholar had any business attempting to decipher them. Delicate carvings of roses wound their way across the lid — each petal carved with an almost obsessive attention to detail, their curling blossoms converging around a single, resplendent apple at the center, an emblem as enigmatic as the casket itself.
It was almost regal in its design, a striking departure from the dark, voodoo-infused relics that typically lined his collection. This one bore a presence unlike the others, something that eluded immediate understanding yet demanded reverence. Alastor couldn’t quite place it. He didn’t know its true purpose, nor the significance of its symbols, yet deep in his bones, he felt it, the unmistakable pull of something extraordinary. This was no ordinary artifact. This was his pièce de résistance.
And so, before any meddlesome exhibit director or overeager curator could stake their claim, Alastor made his decision: this treasure would stay with him.
"Not so fast."
Alastor turned, arching a brow at the weary voice of one of the workers who had just finished hauling in his latest treasure. Husk was a regular, having transported countless of Alastor’s procurements over the years, always with that same judgmental sneer, as if he thought lugging cursed objects around might eventually come back to bite him.
He jerked a thumb toward the coffin, shifting the weight of exhaustion from one foot to the other. "We haven’t exactly been able to crack that bad boy open, so… yeah. Pretty sure there’s still a body in there."
Alastor’s grin sharpened, eyes flickering with something bright and unreadable. “Oh? A body, you say?”
He turned back to the coffin, his fingers ghosting over the ornate shell, tracing the delicate carvings of roses and the lone apple at its heart. A body entombed for centuries, wrapped in mystery and sealed beneath layers of arcane sigils... What a marvelous little secret!
He let out a pleased hum. “Tell me, did you at least shake it around a bit? See if it rattles?”
“That’s sick, man.” Husk grimaced.
Alastor merely chuckled, the sound rich and amused. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic! Where’s your sense of curiosity?”
Husk scoffed, waving a dismissive hand as he turned to leave. “Yeah, whatever. Not like I wanna stick around that thing any longer, anyway.”
Still, he cast it one last wary glance. Even he could feel something, subtle but insistent, like a breath on the back of his neck. But then again, when didn’t this side of the museum make his skin crawl? Husk wasn’t the type to spook easy, but Alastor’s collection had a way of getting under the skin. Too many things that whispered when they shouldn’t.
With a shake of his head, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and grumbled, “This whole place gives me the creeps.” And with that, he trudged off, leaving Alastor alone with his newfound prize.
Just as he liked it.
Alastor took a few measured steps back, admiring the coffin in all its glory. Oh, he could already see it now, nestled beneath the dim, haunting glow of the museum’s lights, the perfect centerpiece to his ever-expanding collection of the strange, the mysterious, the forbidden.
But before the public could gawk, before academics and so-called experts could swarm to pick apart its origins with their tedious conjectures, there was something he needed to do. He had to see inside.
This task proved more difficult than Alastor had anticipated. Not for lack of effort, nor due to any deficiency in strength. Granted, he was more sinewy than brawny, all lean limbs and sharp angles, but this — this wasn’t a matter of muscle. The lid refused to budge. It did not creak, did not shift, did not even afford him the courtesy of a struggle. It remained stubbornly, infuriatingly still, as if fused to the very body of the coffin itself. No amount of strategic pulling, no shift in leverage, no firm grasp of his long fingers along its edges made a difference. He strained, he braced, he gritted his teeth, but the damn thing would not yield.
He stepped back, adjusting his tie with an air of forced nonchalance, but his sharp eyes remained locked on the artifact, scrutinizing it like an opponent in an unseen battle of wills. It was as if the coffin had no intention of revealing its secrets.
And yet, he could not resort to force. The very idea of trying to pry it open with crude tools, of scarring its intricate layer, of tarnishing the delicate gold inlay, no, that was unthinkable. Some things demanded patience. Some things required reverence.
And Alastor was nothing if not enduring!
He had dealt with artifacts far more temperamental than this one, objects that hummed when touched or bled when cracked, that carried whispers from voices long since swallowed by the void. If this thing thought it could test him, it was sorely mistaken. Besides, it wasn’t as if he were desperate to pry out whatever poor soul had been laid to rest inside. Human remains were nothing new to him. Skeletons, mummified corpses, remnants of the long-forgotten, he had handled them all with a gloved hand and a fascinated eye, cataloging their histories with the same enthusiasm a jeweler reserved for fine gems. This was no different.
If anything, that only added to its appeal.
It swiftly ascended to the pinnacle of his collection, the undisputed crown jewel of the exhibit.
Visitors arrived in droves, ensnared by its impossible beauty, their gazes lingering in captivated reverence, the single apple at the center caught the light like a drop of crystallized blood. Historians debated its provenance in hushed yet fervent exchanges, their fingers ghosting over the brittle pages of aged manuscripts, desperately scouring fragmented records in pursuit of an answer, some rational explanation as to how such an antiquity could remain so utterly untouched by time.
Meanwhile, the more paranoid visitors took to wild theorizing. Their theories were steeped in suspicion, their voices heavy with the weight of unspoken warnings. They gathered in quiet clusters, poring over the labyrinthine glyphs etched into its lustrous exterior, their wary murmurs laced with superstition. They spoke of seals and wards, of ancient bindings never meant to be broken, of things best left undisturbed.
Alastor, however, remained utterly unbothered. If anything, he found their dramatics amusing. He had no qualms about dealing with the occasional group of outraged, pearl-clutching visitors — the kind who brandished trembling fingers at the coffin, their voices rising in shrill condemnation. Satanism! Demonology! Blasphemy! They would cry, their righteous fury painting them as prophets of doom.
Alastor could only sigh. If only he could be so lucky.
He would weave effortlessly through the exhibit, listening to the hushed speculations, soaking in their awe like a cat basking in the sun. With a knowing smile, he indulged their inquiries, his answers were a careful dance of revelation and restraint. He doled out knowledge in tantalizing fragments, enough to fan the flames of their curiosity, to keep them dangling on the precipice of understanding, but never enough to grant them true satisfaction. Mystery, after all, was a far more potent enchantment than truth.
Though, despite the admiration, despite the prestige it brought him, he loathed when people ventured too close.
The museum had its rules, of course, glass barriers, velvet ropes, a respectful distance to be upheld at all times, but the masses were careless, and curiosity had a way of making fools of even the most disciplined. He saw it in the way some leaned in too far, their breath ghosting against the glass, fingers flexing at their sides as if resisting the primal urge to touch what ought to remain untouched. The idea of some careless onlooker smudging their greasy fingerprints onto its perfect gilded veneer, of some overeager academic thinking they could analyze it better than he could — it set his teeth on edge.
He was territorial over it, watching from the periphery with sharp eyes, ever the silent sentinel. If someone lingered too long, if they leaned in just a little too close, they would feel it. The slow, creeping sensation of being watched. Alastor made sure of it. A well-timed clearing of his throat, and a sudden presence at their side, his grin stretching just a bit too wide.
"Careful now!" he’d exclaim, his voice light, almost sing-song, yet carrying an unmistakable edge. More often than not, it startled the offender — how had he appeared so suddenly at their side? As though he had materialized from the very shadows.
"Some things don’t take kindly to prying eyes," he’d muse, his ever-present grin sharp as a knife, his tone dancing on the precarious line between playful and foreboding.
Most visitors would hastily step back, offering nervous chuckles or murmuring their appreciation before moving along.
Good.
"I gotta hand it to ya, Al, this right here? This is some real high-class hokum."
Alastor heard the unmistakable voice of Rosie drawl behind him before she sauntered up, arms crossed, casting an appraising once-over at his display.
Rosie was one of the rare few who could stomach Alastor’s eccentricities — perhaps the only one who openly acknowledged him as a friend. She presided over her own exhibit, a sumptuous tribute to the grandeur of the 18th and 19th centuries, where every minutiae was a testament to opulence. From gilded chandeliers casting warm amber light over mahogany furnishings to the rich velvet drapery framing portraits of long-dead aristocrats, her domain was one of cultivated refinement, a love letter to a bygone era of poise and prestige. Yet for all her affection for the genteel and the grandiose, Rosie harbored an undeniable fascination for the macabre, and so, without fail, she always found time to swing by Alastor’s corner of the museum, ever curious to see what new cursed oddity he had pried from the grasp of time.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the queen of old-money ghosts herself,” he said, arms spreading in an exaggerated gesture of welcome. “To what do I owe the honor, Rosie? What brings you to my neck of the woods?”
Rosie rolled her eyes, though the gesture was accompanied by a smirk. “Oh, please. With all the hullaballoo this thing’s been stirrin’ up, I’d be a fool not to take a look for myself!” She let out a low whistle, tilting her head as she examined its intricacies.
“This is a real showstopper. You sure you didn’t swindle some poor sap outta this? This thing looks like it oughta be sitting in a king’s tomb, not your little house of horrors.”
Alastor’s grin stretched wider as he watched Rosie take it all in. “Magnificent, isn’t she?” he mused, his voice dripping with satisfaction.
Rosie quirked a brow, amusement flickering across her face. "She?"
Alastor merely shrugged, his grin unfaltering. “What, would you rather I call it ‘it’? How terribly impersonal.”
Rosie huffed a laugh, shaking her head as she returned her attention to the coffin. “Only you would get attached to a fancy box with a dead guy in it.”
Alastor tutted, placing a hand over his heart in mock offense. “Now, now, Rosie. A little respect for the dearly departed, if you please.”
They stood before it his display, Alastor's gaze was fixed upon it with the intensity of a man utterly bewitched. He barely blinked, his fingers twitching slightly at his sides, as if resisting the urge to reach out, to trace the delicate carvings just once more. The chatter of museum-goers around him had long since faded into white noise. Nothing else mattered. Nothing but—
Rosie stiffened.
From the hall beyond, there came a sound. A terrible sound.
A discordant symphony of rubber soles skidding against polished marble. The shrill crescendo of unrestrained excitement. The incessant rustling of synthetic windbreakers and overstuffed backpacks bursting with juice boxes and crumpled worksheets.
Oh, merciful heavens.
Field trips.
Rosie pivoted just in time to witness the inevitable onslaught — a stampede of overzealous, sugar-addled children barreling around the corner, their boundless energy barely contained by a battalion of exhausted chaperones who already wore the hollow-eyed look of the defeated, five seconds away from resignation, no doubt.
Rosie nudged Alastor’s arm, jolting him from his reverie. His gaze flickered to the incoming horde. Almost immediately, he felt it, a dull throb blooming at his temples, the early signs of a headache creeping in.
Rosie held up her hands in mock surrender, already taking a step back. "Sorry, dear, but you're on your own for this one. I gotta get back and hold down my own fort." She shot him a smirk, the kind that said she was more than happy to abandon him to the chaos. "Good luck, though. You’re gonna need it!" And with that, she turned on her heel, making a swift and tactical retreat.
The tidal wave of children surged forward, an unholy amalgamation of sticky fingers, unspent energy, and unfiltered noise. They descended upon the exhibit with all the reverence of a pack of raccoons rifling through a particularly interesting dumpster, their wide eyes locking onto the centerpiece as if drawn by some primal, moth-to-flame instinct. The glass barrier barely stood a chance. Within moments, tiny hands were plastered against it, smudging its pristine surface with fingerprints and the unmistakable sheen of whatever snacks they had been clutching moments prior. Some of them went up on their toes, noses squished against the glass, their breath fogging the barrier as they peered inside with the unearned confidence of self-proclaimed experts.
“I bet there’s a mummy in there!”
“No way, it’s gotta be a vampire. Look at all the creepy writing!”
“My dad says rich people steal stuff and put it in museums! Maybe it’s cursed!”
“Dude, what if it OPENS?”
That particular suggestion sent a ripple of excitement through the horde, and several of them immediately decided to test the theory, knocking on the glass, rapping their knuckles against the barrier, as if sheer persistence might compel it to yield its secrets. Alastor ought to beat them off with a stick. Not hard, of course — just a gentle herding technique, like shooing particularly annoying pigeons from a park bench. Pity the museum and society had rules against such things.
Alastor advanced with the deliberate grace of a man teetering on the precipice of exasperation. With an unsettling proficiency, one that suggested this was far from his first ordeal with unsupervised delinquents. He deftly extracted each child from the exhibit, long fingers plucking at collars and shoulders with the kind of careful precision one might use when handling particularly volatile antiques. A chorus of groans and whines followed, a collective wave of disappointment washing over the group as they were peeled away from their newfound obsession.
"Aww, c'mon!"
"We weren’t even touching it!"
"But what if there’s a mummy inside?! We gotta check!"
Unimpressed, Alastor corralled the little miscreants like a shepherd herding particularly unruly sheep, steering them back toward their frazzled chaperone, who, judging by her wide eyes and harried expression, had long since lost control of the situation.
"Madam," he intoned, smoothing down the front of his vest with exaggerated care, "I must strongly advise a closer watch over your young charges. Particularly in this wing of the museum." His smile stretched just a fraction wider, teeth flashing like the edge of a polished blade. "We wouldn’t want them getting into something they shouldn’t, now would we?"
There was something in his tone, something silken and deceptively sweet, that sent an almost visible chill down the woman’s spine. She hastily sputtered an apology, ushering the children away with frantic urgency, shooting nervous glances over her shoulder as though afraid he might change his mind and decide to hex them all where they stood.
The chaperone lined the children up near the exit, her lips moving as she quietly tallied each head, her tone a rhythmic murmur beneath the lingering commotion.
“Twenty-six… twenty-seven… twenty-eight… twenty-nine…”
A beat of silence. A slight furrow of her brow.
“Wait! Where’s Billy?!” she exclaimed, her voice suddenly sharp with alarm.
Billy, in all his boundless, unfiltered chaos, had made a dire miscalculation.
Perhaps he had only meant to lean, to press against the glass with the idle, thoughtless confidence of a child who had never faced true consequence. Or perhaps he had meant to show off, to prove to his peers that barriers were just suggestions and rules were made to be bent.
Either way, he did not expect the glass to give.
Alastor saw it unfold in wretched, agonizing slow motion — a single careless moment setting off a chain reaction of impending catastrophe. The barrier gave a hair’s breadth of movement, an unnatural shift that sent a deep, guttural groan reverberating through the structure. It was a sound of protest, of strain, the whisper of disaster making itself known before the fall. The child flailed, arms pinwheeling as he scrambled for balance, his sneakers squeaking against the polished floor. His weight pressed further into the fragile equilibrium, and the world seemed to tip with it.
The coffin wobbled.
A tremor shot through the glass, a spiderweb of tension crackling beneath the surface, unseen but undeniably felt. The vibrations rippled outward, sending shudders through the pedestal, through the very bones of the display, like a beast awakening from a long, undisturbed slumber.
Alastor sucked in a sharp breath, lips parting in some half-formed warning — too late.
A creak. A lurch.
Then —
CRASH.
The sound was deafening, an earsplitting symphony of shattering glass and splintering echoes. It erupted like a violent crescendo, shards fracturing outward in a glittering cascade, catching the museum lights in cruel, jagged prisms. The sheer force of it sent a gust of displaced air rippling through the space, a ghost of chaos sweeping over the stunned crowd. His magnificent, priceless, irreplaceable relic, remained unscathed, but bare now, exposed in its raw, undisturbed form. Vulnerable. And in the silence that follows, every single pair of eyes turns to Alastor.
Because if there was ever a moment a man might snap, it was now.
It took every ounce of Alastor’s willpower to approach the wreckage with measured steps instead of storming over and stringing up the little hellion responsible. His hands remained tightly clasped behind his back, fingers digging into his palns with barely restrained ire, ensuring he didn’t do something regrettable — like throttling a child in front of an audience. His expression was a mask of unsettling calm, but his eyes… oh, his eyes burned with a quiet fury. Each step he took was punctuated by the sharp, grating crunch of glass splintering beneath his soles, a sound that sent a shudder down the spine of anyone close enough to hear it.
Lowering himself with agonizing slowness, he crouched beside the wreckage, every movement deliberate, precise. He took in the scene with a critical gaze, his jaw tight as he scanned for damage. Miraculously, the coffin remained unscathed. Not a single crack in its lacquered shell, not a chip to its ornate carvings. It sat among the wreckage of its shattered enclosure, pristine, untouched, almost mocking him with its defiance against disaster.
And yet, that did nothing to quell the sour feeling coiling in his stomach.
His fingers itched to run along its surface, to confirm with touch what his eyes could only suggest, but he dared not, not yet. He would need a closer look, a private one. Away from prying eyes.
“Umm… Mister?”
The voice grated against Alastor’s nerves like nails on a chalkboard, high-pitched and wavering with uneasy guilt. His patience, already worn thin, strained further.
“I, uh… I’m real sorry...”
The boy stood there, hands clasped behind his back, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. His face was twisted into that familiar expression all children wore when they knew they were about to get an earful, something between guilt and the universal fear of getting absolutely chewed out.
Alastor regarded him with a slow, deliberate grin, one that stretched just a little too wide, teeth glinting under the museum lights like a row of ivory needles. It was the kind of smile painted onto marionettes, frozen in place — too fixed, too sharp, just a little wrong.
And then, with an eerie sort of grace, he rose to his full height, all six feet and six inches of him unfolding like a shadow stretching long in the dying light. He loomed.
“Oh, dear boy,” he cooed, his voice syrupy sweet, “there’s no need for all that fuss. Accidents happen, don’t they?”
The boy nodded hesitantly, though he looked no less uneasy.
Alastor placed a delicate hand over his chest, feigning deep thought, and leaned in just enough to make the space between them feel far too small. “Of course,” he continued, voice dipping just enough to make the air feel heavier, “some accidents… well, they have a way of coming back to us, don’t they?”
The boy let out a strangled noise somewhere between a squeak and a whimper. Then, with the raw survival instincts of a creature who knew it had stared into the maw of something very wrong, he bolted, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste to flee.
Alastor stood alone in the museum’s conservation chamber, a sanctum typically reserved for specialists, painstaking restorers with steady hands and scrutinizing eyes, trained to mend the wounds of time. But he would not entrust this to them. No archivist, or careful-handed curator would lay a single gloved finger upon it. This was his, his to inspect, his to protect.
The coffin lay beneath the cold, surgical glare of an overhead lamp, its golden embellishments catching and refracting the sterile light in ways that made the symbols carved into its surface seem to shift and writhe. The air in the room was still, thick with a quiet reverence, broken only by the faint hum of the fluorescents above. It felt almost clinical, like an operating theater frozen in anticipation — where he was both the sole surgeon and the anxious relative pacing outside, dreading what he might find.
He approached with slow, deliberate steps, each footfall a measured cadence against the cold tile. With a practiced shrug, he shed his blazer, rolling his shoulders to rid them of the lingering tension. His fingers twitched at his sides, aching with the urge to reach out, to feel, to confirm with touch what his eyes could only scrutinize from a distance. His gaze prowled over the exterior, dissecting every exquisite carving, every meticulously inlaid symbol, searching for the slightest imperfection, the faintest betrayal of damage.
The glass shattering had been a catastrophe, but had it suffered for it?
He stalked around it with a deliberate, predatory grace, his eyes raking over every contour, every painstakingly etched emblem, searching and probing for the slightest imperfection. A hairline fracture, an indelicate scratch, some sacrilegious dent marring its unearthly perfection. His breath, steady and controlled, seemed to fade into the background, eclipsed by the pounding of his thoughts. He leaned over, his gaze flicking from one corner to another, peering into the shadows beneath the delicate grooves of the gilded skin. He scrutinized every curve, every angle, convinced that somewhere, deep within the architecture of the piece, there must be some sign of distress. A faint ripple in the once-perfect symmetry.
But there was nothing.
No signs of damage. Not a hint of a flaw to mar its pristine elegance.
It was as if the catastrophe had never happened.
A small, tremulous breath escaped his lips, and for a brief moment, his lips curled upward in a smile, gratitude mingled with a rare, almost vindictive sense of triumph — thank the Lord for small mercies.
Yet, he wasn’t ready to part ways with it just yet. Another lingering glance at its immaculate plane stirred something deep within him, an itch of frustration, an unspoken yearning. For all the time he had spent marveling at it, for all the admiration and possessiveness it evoked in him, the sobering truth remained: he knew so very little about his treasured prize. How long had it slumbered beneath the earth? And, more interestingly— Who had once lain within this lavish sarcophagus, now stripped of name and history?
A royal, no doubt. The craftsmanship alone suggested nobility, something far beyond the reach of common men. This was a coffin fit for a king or queen of unparalleled extravagance, a figure revered, perhaps even deified in their time. Someone worshiped in life and meant to be honored in death. Or… were they?
His gaze traced the infernal script that coiled and twisted along the coffin’s gilded edges, the unmistakable imprints, the cryptic inscriptions lifted straight from the Ars Goetia. Demonic insignias, embedded into something meant to house a soul. A contradiction. A taunt. A question begging to be answered. What kind of royal would commission such a thing? A monarch straying from the divine, shunning the sanctity of heaven for something darker? A rebel against the dogma of their time? Or perhaps the etchings came later, scratched into it not as reverence, but as a curse. A sentence of eternal damnation.
His head swam with possibilities, with stories waiting to be unraveled, each one more tantalizing than the last. And yet, there were no answers. Only theories, and the maddening silence of something that refused to yield its secrets.
With a quiet, self-effacing chuckle, Alastor dragged a chair closer, the scrape of its legs against the floor swallowed by the oppressive hush of the room. He sank into it with a measured exhale, the rigid tension in his shoulders uncoiling at last, only now registering just how long he had stood there, utterly enraptured, time slipping like sand through his fingers as he was lost in the thrall of his own fixation. A bead of sweat traced a slow path down his temple. Yet even now, seated, he remained tethered to it, his gaze drinking in the intricate brume once more.
As though drawn by some unseen force, his hand lifted, hovering for a moment before descending to rest upon the center of the lid. His fingers spread across the cool, ancient plating, reverent in their touch, before his middle finger began its slow, deliberate pilgrimage forward, gliding unhurriedly, tracing the elaborate engravings with a feather-light caress. It moved with purpose, inexorable and exploratory, until it found the apple at the heart of the design. His fingertip pressed into its carved grooves, feeling out each delicate crevice, each purposeful indentation. He circled it, slow and meditative, the way one might toy with the stem of a wine glass or trace the contours of something forbidden. The longer he lingered, the more the symbolism teased at the edges of his thoughts. An apple — the emblem of knowledge, of desire, of temptation itself. How fitting.
Beneath his fingertips, the surface warmed, not gradually, but with a sudden, almost imperceptible shift. At first, he thought it a trick of the mind, a phantom sensation born of his own anticipation. But then it deepened, a slow, insidious heat seeping through the lavish carvings, blooming against his palm like something alive.
The room itself felt heavier, the air thickening, stifling, as if the very walls had drawn closer in silent conspiracy. Beads of sweat gathered at his collar, his pulse drumming a slow, eager rhythm beneath his skin. Was it simply the feverish rush of being alone with his prize? The placebo effect of proximity to something truly extraordinary? Or was it something else — something older, something waiting?
His lips curled into a grin, so wide and wolfish. Whether this was the first brush of revelation or the creeping hand of a curse, he cared little. Whatever it was, he welcomed it.
He was onto something.
Settling in, he squared his shoulders and leaned forward, his chair groaning softly as he adjusted his posture, positioning himself directly before it, knees brushing the ornate base. His hands hovered mere inches above its epiderma, fingers twitching in anticipation before finally descending, splaying his hands out over the surface, fingers hovering like a pianist poised before the first haunting note of a requiem.
His palms flattened, warmth blooming against the exquisitely unsullied expanse, and then, his fingers moved. Long, deft, and calloused, they pressed into the grooves of the carvings, mapping their every peak and valley, memorizing each sigil’s curvature with something perilously close to worship. He traced them like one might trace the shape of a lover’s lips in the dark, lingering over every minute detail, teasing the indentations as though the act alone might coax the dormant thing inside to stir.
Lost in his fervent adoration, a manic grin splitting his face, Alastor scarcely noticed the stifling heat that thickened the air, curling around him like an oppressive embrace. The room pulsed, alive in a way it hadn’t been moments before. The coffin beneath his hands gleamed with an unnatural luster, its golden inlays catching the dim light and throwing it back in a way that seemed almost serpentine, shifting and writhing under his fingertips.
His glasses, slick with the sweat gathering at his brow, began their inevitable descent down the bridge of his nose. A sharp huff of irritation escaped him as he snatched them away, tucking them carelessly into the collar of his shirt. Even that fleeting separation sent a spike of annoyance through him — he abhorred any momentary severance from it. To make up for it, he doubled his efforts. His long fingers resumed their meticulous exploration, his touch more insistent now, teasing the ridges of each demonic seal, tracing every arcane flourish with renewed fervor. His fingertips pressed deeper into the grooves, caressing it with something almost intimate, as though his devotion alone might pry forth its secrets. The temperature spiked again, the air so thick it felt nearly tangible, pressing in on his skin.
Alastor, ensnared in his own rapturous fixation, let his fingers wander across the elaborate engravings, committed every ridge. His breath came in shallow, uneven pulls, his pupils dilated in unrestrained fascination as he traced each arc with the devotion of a man deciphering divine script. His fingertips pressed, glided, lingered — until, in his fervor, he bore down just a touch too hard.
A sharp sting. A brief hitch in his breath caught halfway between surprise and something dangerously close to delight.
His finger snagged against the apple’s unforgiving edge, the cut carving deeper than he’d anticipated. A sharp sting flared up his fingertip, but the pain was a mere afterthought — no, more than that, it was a thrill, a spark of something raw and electric that sent a delicious shudder through him. He watched, transfixed, as a bead of rich crimson welled up, plump and glistening, before spilling forward, smearing across the apple’s skin like a coat of fresh paint, a contrast against its timeworn hue. It was as if he were reanointing it, baptizing it in something far more intimate than age alone.
The instant his blood kissed the carving, the atmosphere recoiled — thickening, stirring, as if the very air recognized the significance of his offering. The symbols, once dormant and lifeless, roused from their ancient slumber in a slow, sinuous burn. Their deep etchings ignited with an eerie, pulsing luminescence, a red not of mundane flame but something far more visceral, richer and deeper, like the last light of a dying sun.
The symbols flared, but they did not merely glow, they breathed. Their radiance shot into the air, shimmering ribbons of crimson light twisting and curling before bursting into embers that lingered for a heartbeat too long before vanishing. More beautiful than any firework display he’d ever seen. The air grew thick, charged, humming with something sentient. Wisps of heat licked at Alastor’s skin, grazing the sharp bridge of his nose, tickling his cheeks like phantom fingers. It should have burned. Perhaps it was burning.
But he only laughed. Soft at first, breathless, a sound pulled from deep in his chest, swelling with something too wild to be called mere excitement. It was exhilaration, awe — vindication.
Then, the coffin moved. Not with a jarring lurch or with a splintering crack of long-sealed wood torn asunder, but with a low, resonant thrum. A sound that settled into his bones, a vibration that felt less like movement and more like a thing awakening. The seams, once so imperceptible they may as well have not existed, began to part.
The locks, if they had ever existed in any tangible sense, seemed to unravel from within, each ward loosening, unfurling like unseen fingers untying an ancient knot. Then, the lid began to part. Not with a jarring crack nor the grind of aged gravel, but with a slow, deliberate opening. Inch by inch, it peeled away, like the gentle parting of theater curtains before the grand reveal, as if it had simply been waiting.
Alastor did not move.
He did not breathe.
He stood rooted to the spot, limbs locked in place, ensnared by the sheer, breathtaking impossibility of it all. Shock and awe coiled around his muscles like invisible chains, holding him fast, yet every fiber of his being ached to move, to step forward, to peer into the yawning mouth of history itself, to scrutinize the long-forgotten remains within and let his gaze trace the time-worn bones of whoever had once been laid to rest here. The thought of what lay within sent a delicious tingle racing up his spine, anticipation curling in his gut like a tightly wound spring. Slowly, deliberately, he inhaled, filling his lungs with the thick, charged air, and then, unable to resist any longer, he leaned in, drawn forward by the whispered invitation of the beyond...
Alastor is a man who prides himself on his preparation. He crafts his feasts with precision, curates his exhibits to exacting perfection, Even his more… unsavory indulgences, his occasional forays into bloodshed — should one be so inclined to call them that — are not mere acts of impulse, but carefully composed symphonies of intention, every note played to perfection.
He is not a man easily rattled. Not a soul on this earth could recall a time when Alastor had been caught truly off guard, least of all himself.
And yet —
For the first time in longer than he can remember, something has managed to truly unseat him.
For as his gaze fell upon the unveiled secret, his breath caught — not in exultion, nor even in horror, but in something far more insidious: pure, unfiltered disbelief. He had anticipated the brittle relics of the past, discolored and fractured bones, nestled in the velvet embrace of their final resting place. He had prepared himself for the dust of centuries and the unmistakable scent of desolation and decay, But instead...
Spun gold spilled across the cushion in silken waves, each strand undisturbed by time's cruel hand, gleaming with an ethereal luster beneath the light. Skin, impossibly smooth and unblemished, bore not a single blemish of ruin, not a hint of sagging flesh, no sunken cheeks, no ghastly pallor. There was no stiffness to the limbs, no telltale signs of rigor mortis clutching at wasted muscle. No shriveled decay or brittle fragility.
This was something else entirely. This was untouched. Preserved. Impossibly, unnervingly perfect.
And Alastor, who had seen death in every form it could take, who knew its cold, merciless grip better than most, felt the weight of something pressing against his ribs. His fingers curled at his sides. The only truth that settled in his chest was this: this was no ordinary corpse.
And upon closer inspection, he'd been correct. As his gaze devoured the figure laid bare before him, the realization settled over him like a slow, creeping tide. A woman, or at least, something that wore the shape of one. But no mortal creature had ever looked quite like this.
From beneath cascades of flaxen hair that pooled across the coffin’s silken interior like liquid sunlight, long enough to trail past her thighs, two long, wickedly straight horns jutted from her forehead, deep red, polished to a gleaming perfection, a mirror-like brilliance that drank in the soft glow of the room. They stood in striking contrast against her complexion, impossibly pale, white as the first snowfall of winter, pristine as untouched alabaster. And on her cheeks, two perfect circles of pink, a hue so rich, so deliberate, as though she had stepped from the canvas of a Renaissance masterpiece, a cherub or an angel brought to life. The linen wrappings that adorned her body were but a whisper of modesty, draped loosely from clavicle to thigh, their ancient fibers barely concealing what lay beneath. The bindings had slackened, revealing glimpses of untouched flesh, the gentle swell of her stomach, the delicate rise of her ribs, the soft curve of her hip. Her arms and legs lay bare, and at the tips of her long, elegant fingers, nails like obsidian talons rested against the silken lining — black as night, sharpened as if forged for something purposeful.
And then, there was the scent.
Sweet, thick, and cloying.
A viscous golden sheen clung to her skin in languid rivulets, pooling in the hollows of her collarbones, tracing a glistening path down the thin pale column of her throat. Honey. It dripped and beaded at the tips of her fingers, caught in her tangled tresses, and soaked into into the fraying linen that barely concealed her form. The air was thick with it, a fragrance so overpowering it made his head swim.
Alastor exhaled sharply, a slow, disbelieving grin curling at his lips. A mellified woman. ...Demon?
A body, encased in nature’s own saccharine embalming, suspended in a slumber far too pristine to be called death. Yet, this was no mere preservation — nor was she any ordinary being.
He had studied embalming, dissected the art of mummification, and unraveled the rites of preservation long entombed within history’s grasp, but this? This defied them all. She lay untouched by decay, unclaimed by time itself. No rigidity clutched her limbs, no withering marred her flesh, no hollow recesses spoke of death’s embrace. She was something else entirely.
And for the first time in his life, standing over her with honey-thick air curling in his lungs, Alastor had no idea what to do.
He slipped his glasses back on, a rare moment of uncertainty flickering through his sharp gaze, as if the lenses might somehow reveal the truth, might confirm or dispel the impossible sight before him. Yet, through glass or bare eye, there she lay, unchanged, his treasure still present in all her eerie, breathtaking splendor.
Uncertain of how to proceed, Alastor reached out, fingers hovering for a fraction of a second before he finally took her wrist in his grasp. Warm. Supple. Her skin, impossibly soft beneath his fingertips, carried none of the chill of death he had expected. And yet… no pulse thrummed beneath his touch. No rhythmic proof of life or telltale sign of a beating heart.
How very curious.
Her hand fit so easily into his own. His, long-fingered and rough, a craftsman’s hand, a killer’s hand; hers, small, delicate, yet strangely unmarred by time or circumstance. He slowly unfurled her fingers, one by one, the pad of his thumb brushing over her palm, ghosting over the smooth expanse, testing, teasing, and searching for even the slightest reaction. The skin beneath his touch was impossibly soft, not the brittle, papery texture of preserved remains, nor the stiff, waxen feel of the embalmed.
Using his middle and forefinger, he let them wander, a slow ascent along the gentle incline of her fingers, mapping their length until he reached the very tips. There, his touch met resistance, not from flesh, but from something far more intriguing. Her long, black nails, sharp as daggers, curved like obsidian scythes. He tapped one, experimentally. A subtle give beneath the pressure. Another press, this time firmer, enough that a lesser thing might have twitched in response. But she did not.
Oh, what a discovery this was. He had spent his life uncovering relics of the past, unearthing forgotten things from the clutches of time, but never had he expected to stumble upon something so… pristine. So untouched. A doll, perfectly preserved, locked away in her coffin like a secret waiting just for him.
Even after allowing the air to circulate, the scent of honey remained as potent as ever, clinging to the very walls of the room like an unseen veil. It was not merely an aroma; it was a presence, tangible, almost suffocating in its sweetness. The weight of it pressed against his senses, mingling with the lingering heat, blurring the edges of his thoughts into something hazy, feverish. It was dizzying, yes — but that only made it all the more intoxicating.
He lifted her limp hand closer, tilting it this way and that under the light, watching the way the golden residue glistened upon her pristine skin. His eyes traced over the strange juxtaposition of it all, the dark, curve of her nails, the unnatural stillness of her form, all encased in the embrace of crystallized nectar. He considered, for a fleeting moment, the process of mellification, of a body willingly surrendered to the slow, syrup-thick descent into preservation.
How absurd. To coat a dying thing in something so decadently sweet, to entomb them in honey’s embrace as if granting them an afterlife of saccharine stillness. If one were to ask him, he’d call it an exercise in futility, a fool’s method of grasping at eternity with nothing but sugar and patience, it never worked. His aversion to confections would agree. And yet, here she was. A creature so thoroughly steeped in the ritual and untouched by time, that he could not help but find the entire affair undeniably fascinating. Perhaps, in this singular instance, such a method had not been folly after all.
His gaze traced the slow, deliberate descent of a single honeyed droplet as it broke free from the pool at her palm, and meandered down the pale curve of her wrist. The viscous droplet clung stubbornly to her porcelain skin, and left a shimmering path in its wake, almost hypnotic in its movement, enfolding the light in its aureate grasp, it scattered and refracted it like liquid amber. It slithered along the gentle slope of her forearm, tracing the hollows and rises of her form with aching patience.
Before the thought had fully settled in his mind, before he could question the impulse blooming like a whisper in the back of his thoughts, Alastor moved. He lifted her arm, cradling it as though handling the most fragile of relics, and he brought it closer to his face, the syrup’s heady sweetness thick in the air between them.
Before reason could intervene, he followed the honey’s glistening path with the tip of his tongue, tracing its course in one long, slow, deliberate lick upwards.
It was not an act of hunger, nor one of indulgence — no, nothing so base! This was strictly professional. A method of examination. A test of texture, composition, and preservation. Yes, that was all.
Perhaps a little unorthodox, certainly nontraditional, but curiosity was the lifeblood of discovery, was it not? And Alastor, currently enthralled and enraptured, was nothing if not a devoted man of study.
The flavor that bloomed across his tongue was unlike anything he had ever known. And it wasn’t as though honey was foreign to him, far from it. He had sampled his fair share of the golden nectar throughout his life, had indulged in the occasional beignet drizzled with it, the way his mother used to make. But this? This was something else entirely. It was overwhelming. An unbearable richness that made his tongue curl and his senses reel. It was enough to make him want to wince and drool all at once, to recoil even as some inexplicable part of him craved more. It was decadent, maddeningly excessive, and saturating his very being with a sweetness so profound it felt almost forbidden.
Were he a better man, perhaps he might have felt a flicker of guilt, a whisper of shame curling at the edges of his conscience. But, firstly, this was an act of pure, unfiltered curiosity, nothing more, nothing less. And secondly?
Well.
Alastor had never claimed to be a better man.
Her wrist remained cradled in his grasp, delicate and impossibly small against the span of his palm. She was thin, naturally so, it seemed. Her bones fine and birdlike beneath skin so pale it could have been sculpted from marble. His fingers curled just slightly, his thumb idly brushing over the fragile expanse of her pulse point, and for a moment, he simply admired the contrast: his broad hands, enveloping hers.
And then — he felt it.
A faint little thump beneath his fingertips, fleeting as a whisper.
It was there, and then it wasn’t. Gone.
His breath stilled, his grip tightening in anticipation. And then — another.
And another.
Her lips, black as a starless night, part with a sharp inhale, the sound ragged and desperate, as though she had been drowning in some unseen abyss and had just now breached the surface. Her chest rises, her shoulders twitch, and then — her eyes snap open.