Eve's Boutique - Ch 54

 Obviously, Lilith Plays
“Welcome to the Black Parade”
By the Band My Chemical Romance

Lilith watched her synth player key in the right patch.  She held up a hand, waiting for the perfect moment.  Then cued him.

She grinned wickedly, as that first distinctive piano note hit her sister like a cattle prod.

Eve had been distracted, back turned, laughing about something inconsequential.  Her sister spun like a marionette, every bit of her attention at last where it belonged – on her.

“God damn it, Lilith!”

All around the park, two dozen projection screens switched to a close-up of Lilith’s face.  She licked her teeth, holding the microphone like a lover, and began to sing.  She hated how this song opened – the part about being a young boy was especially cringe – but the effect it had on her sister was a delight.

“Don't do this to me!” Eve screamed, falling to her knees, hands rending at her dress.  “Don't do this to me!”

Lilith grinned, and went right on singing.  Allowing her emotion to build with the song, warming to the performance, as the Binding spell took effect.

Eve tried to yell something.  But all that came out was an incoherent howl.

Playing this fucking song for Eve was like speaking the true name of a demon.  She could feel the shifting of her power, the changing polarity, as the two of them slipped into phase together.  She had Eve trapped in her own body, feeling her own feelings, and that was the best way Lilith knew to cut her sister off from her power.  In that state, she couldn’t do anything but amplify whatever Lilith fed her.

Abigail was only vaguely aware of the change in music, as she continued to smile down at the tiny man in her palm.  Was Elijah her boyfriend, her lover?  Maybe her ‘paramour?’  Eh, they could figure out terminology later.  Whatever you called it, this felt fresh, and new, and exciting.  She couldn’t wait to explore it with him.

“So I’m kinda too big to snuggle on your couch,” Abigail was saying.  “How would you feel about spending some time in my pocket instead?  I mean this dress doesn’t have pockets but like.  Hypothetically.”

“I could sit on your shoulder,” he offered.  “Like a parrot.  That sounds neat, I’ve never been a parrot before.  Hey this is random.  I suddenly really want to be on the dance floor.  I haven’t danced since my cousin’s wedding when I was twelve, and the EMT’s made me promise I wouldn't do it again.  Can we go dance though?  Like, right now?”

Behind them the drums hit, and the pace of the music rapidly increased.

Abigail winced in pain.  Her brows furrowed as her free hand went immediately to her temple.

“What’s wrong?” Elijah asked.

“I don’t know.”

It felt as if Abigail had been watching the flicker of a tiny little candle – so dim she was hardly conscious of its light.  The candle had suddenly flared flash-bang bright, then gone out.

Eve had been present in her mind for days now, long before she’d become consciously aware that the connection between them was two-way.  She felt back, and realized when that had started.  It was their first kiss, as she sat on the floor of Eve’s apartment.  But no, it was even earlier – the moment just before, when Abigail had asked the witch to forget about pleasing her, and focus on her own desires instead.  Eve had been with her ever since.

But now, she felt her absence.  A dull, papercut ache.  

She was no longer bound to Eve.

All around her, people were streaming toward the stage – abandoning Castle Chloe, emerging from the chill-out tents.  Even the last remnants of Mackenzie’s procession line had emptied out.  Almost all of them sang along with the music, and many were openly crying.  The ones Eve’s magic had touched were a little different.  They were more joyful, and seemed to still have a bit of autonomy.  But even these were heading toward the stage.

Kayla and Chloe were there at her hip.  Both her friends less than a third her size, looking up at her expectantly, waiting for orders.

In the space of two heartbeats, Abigail became the person she needed.

“Alright alright, my friends of all sizes,” she said, pumping her fist in the air.  “You’ve experienced Chloe’s monumental bosom, you’ve thrilled to the touch of my feet.  But you’ll never guess what we’ve got in store next.  Colossal Kayla, the muscle-chick who never quits, kisses and kicks, guaranteed to hit, is about to get in on the action!  This will not be something to miss.  Lines are forming….”

Not a single member of the crowd was listening to her.

Abigail looked down at her friends, trying not to let panic show on her face.

She felt a little tug on her dress.  Victoria was there, looking nervous, and awfully small.  A hundred feet of woman at least, and not even the length of Abby’s forearm.

“Miss Archer, what’s happening?  Everyone is acting weird.  I hate this song, but I really want to go dance.  What should we do?”

Abigail hugged Elijah again.  Then without hesitation, carefully placed him into Victoria’s open palm, right beside Dylan.

“I’m trusting you,” she told the woman.  “With two people who are very, very special to me.  Take them and get out of here.  Get as far away as you can.”

“But they’re not stamping for re-entry.”

“Tori!”

The purple-haired woman looked down at the two tiny men in her hands.  She nodded in determination.  Without another word, she ran off into the night.

“This is bad,” Chloe said.  “Isn’t it?”

Abigail faced her friends.  “I’ll be honest.  I don’t know what to do, and I’m scared.  Whatever Lilith is doing is powerful, and Eve isn’t stopping it.  I think it’s just us.”

“Then we do like the song says.”  Kayla tilted her head toward a speaker, and punched her hand into her fist.  “We carry on.”

Chloe nodded.  She reached down, grabbed as many party-goers as she could in her muscular arms, and carried them away from the stage.

Without a word, Kayla and Abigail did the same.

What a meaningless gesture, Lilith thought.  Might as well try to bail out the ocean.  Those three might be able to deny her a few hundred worshipers.  Let them.  She had two-hundred thousand, spread out at her feet.

And above all, she had Eve.

At long last, her sister had stopped fighting her.  She was nothing more than a conduit for her power, a gigantic repeating antenna.  Eve didn’t even have the will to dance.  She simply stood there, three hundred feet tall, glaring at Lilith like a disaffected teenager.  And the way she was crying – it was some serious magical-realist bullshit.  Tears the size of Eve’s own fists fell from her eyes, forming a salt-water lake at her feet, where her tiny worshipers waded and danced.

Eve was singing the lyrics back at her.

No.  Not singing.  Snarling.  And there was something about the way she said certain phrases.  All that crap about never breaking her, never taking her heart.  The implications were kinda on on-the-nose, if you asked Lilith, but anyway it didn’t matter – Eve was powerless right now.  There was no way she was throwing off this enchantment before the song’s end.

Still, she was doing something with those words.

There was another thing.  It had to do with being a good performer.  Or a good liar, which was the same thing, really.  Once you took on a role, it became a part of you.  You took it inside, and only the best could truly let it go again.

Lilith was paying a price for this spell.  Well, what the fuck else was new.

It was time to end this.

She caught the eye of the cameraman, high on the scaffolding in the middle of the field.  He was focused on her, as he should be.  Lilith’s beautiful face, displayed on every screen, encircling the vast throng before her.  With Eve out of the way, there was no stopping what came next.

In the cameraman’s mind, she told him what to do.

As the last note of the song fell, the view on the screens shifted and blurred.  When it finally resolved, the camera was directly on Mackenzie.

Chloe and Kayla cried out in unison.  Both women tried to save the other, giving up everything in that moment for one last act of heroism.  They tackled each other awkwardly, rolling end over end on the now-empty walkway.  They landed together, arms and legs intertwined – both facing a screen.

Their faces twisted with grotesque joy.  As did the face of every last person in the crowd.

“Mackenzie!” Lilith screamed.  “Do it now!”

Mackenzie at first didn’t realize she was on camera.  The instant she understood, her expression snapped into a winning smile.

Abigail hesitated, for a full second.  Mackenzie was just so much.  The two of them were almost the same size – yet clearly Mackenzie had been stealing more than just height from her worshipers.  She was radiant; so beautiful that it almost broke her mind to look upon her.  In the face of her, and knowing what was about to happen, for the briefest instant Abigail lost the will to fight.

Even then, she knew what that delay had cost her.

“Hey there, all my little fans!  Thank you so much for coming to my party.  It’s been an amazing night, hasn’t it?  But now it’s time for the main event!”

Abigail moved.  There were dozens of tiny humans in her arms, and putting them safely on the ground took an agonizing eternity.  She had time for two running steps….

“I’ll take your tribute….”

Abigail dove across the empty field, arms outstretched.  If she could just get her hands over their eyes, even one of her friends, please, just one!

“Now!”

She reached.

And Chloe and Kayla simply… disappeared.

Her friends dwindled, sinking down into the dirt.  Melting away together, intertwined in a final embrace, until both women were too small to see.

The whole crowd was following suit.  In less than a second, everyone was gone.  Everyone but Eve, and Abigail.  And Lilith, smirking from the stage.

The world cracked as Mackenzie grew.  Concrete and glass sundered beneath her feet, shattering towers and skyscrapers that were miles away across the city.  The weight of her body broke through into the crust of the Earth.  Molten rock steamed into the air, driven white-hot by the friction of stiletto against stone.  And as she grew, her entire body began to gleam with an eerie light.  Mackenzie’s body flared like a newborn sun, lighting up the night, illuminating her majesty against the infinite darkness that surrounded her.

Lilith’s voice was almost gentle.  “May I introduce to you to the last divinity this world will ever know.  Mackenzie.  You’ve done me proud.”

Abigail was too shocked to be frightened.  She was eight hundred feet tall, and didn’t even reach the top of Mackenzie toe.  There were thin wispy clouds high overhead, and even these were only at her ankle.

“Mackenzie, dear.”  Lilith pointed at Abigail.  “You missed a spot.  A technicality, really.  But an important one.  Do it.”

“Abby!” Eve screamed.  “Run!”

“Yes, Abigail,” Lilith purred.  “Run.  Turn tail and abandon Eve, like we all knew you would.  Who knows?  I might even let you get away.  But stay or go, your time with Eve is finished.  She’s finally about to be in the hands of someone who actually wants what’s best for her, who knows the true meaning of love.”

Abigail ignored the witch.  She stood, dusted herself off, and waited for her friend to arrive.

There was a horrible sound as Mackenzie reached for her.  The ripping of a hurricane force wind, the echoing boom as her fist broke the sound barrier.  There was nothing like it in the human experience.  Except perhaps what would be on the last day of Abigail’s species, as a luckless world peered up to see the meteor that would spell its extinction.

Mackenzie’s hand stopped, with inhuman precision, just before Abigail’s upturned face.  Even at this scale, the woman was flawless.  She didn’t even have fingerprints anymore.

The Goddess, her eyes the size of aquamarine swimming pools, frowned at her as though inspecting a particularly interesting bug.  Mackenzie’s hand opened, and with fingernails as thick as Abigail’s fists, pinched Eve’s charm.

Abigail waited for the end.

And waited.

“It’s a shame to break this,” Mackenzie said – barely whispering, though her voice reverberated through the city like thunder.

“Yeah?” Abigail replied through gritted teeth.  “And why’s that?”

Mackenzie seemed to think about this for an extraordinarily long time.

“Because it’s pretty.”

“You think so?”

Abigail smiled.  She took hold of the chain – and lifted it over her head.

“It’s yours.”