Who: Ezekiel Gaines & Phoenix Schwartz What: Smart men never make bets with mysterious strangers. Where: Forked Tongue Tavern, Gehenna When: Late night Warnings: TBD
Everyone knew that demons lived in their mansions and manors, in Gehenna, and left the taverns to the humans who liked to drink away their cares.... or the reminders that they were in a land of demons who could do anything that they wanted to them, really, and it wasn't as if a human could stop them. No demon would sink low enough onto his belly to associate with humans, outside of their deals, or using them as servants. They'd certainly never have a drink with them, at the same table, from the same cask of wine or keg of beer. It would be beneath a demon's dignity.
The man sitting at the table in front of the fire looked like any other man. That was what demons didn't want you to realize: they looked just like any human. There was nothing physical to set them apart from anyone else in the kingdom. It was all in their mind. In their powers. Put a human and a demon side by side, and you'd never be able to tell them apart. Ezekiel was like any other demon in one way... he didn't want any human to realize that. Not until he'd had his way with them, first, because he wasn't like other demons in other ways. He didn't care for their airs. He would crawl in the mud with the rest of them, do his dealings the same way he'd done them since before they'd been the ones to rule.
By rights, he should have been a man of power. He could have claimed a position near the top, if he'd cared to. Power had never been the treasure that Ezekiel craved. No... what Ezekiel wanted was shiny things. Not literally shiny, no, though gems held their own appeal. Their greatest appeal, though, was that other people wanted them. Humans wanted them. Demons wanted them, and Ezekiel wanted whatever it was that someone else coveted. He wanted to have it from them, to pluck it from their hands, snatch it out of their grip before they could enjoy the fruits of their work. So long as it was someone else's treasure, so long as someone else valued it, that was what made him want it.
He could take, and take, from his fellow demons, but that was too easy, really. They were all greedy, that was what a demon was. If you asked Ezekiel, that was what set them apart from men. They wanted more. They wanted the world. It was no challenge to play on their greed, to take their treasures away. They had enough, and could gain more, that the loss was nothing more than a momentary setback. What really made something important was when it was all that someone had, the only thing that they could lay claim to for themselves. Those were the sorts of treasures that Ezekiel wanted, and those were the sorts of treasures that only humans could own.
The deck of cards in his hand was well-worn. They shuffled easily, between long, slender fingers, dark eyes seeming entirely focused on the interplay of cards. They weren't, of course. They were scanning the room, looking for someone... interesting. Someone with that certain light that told Ezekiel that they had a treasure that they were holding in reserve. Something they'd miss, if he took it. There was no guarantee that he'd find someone, that night. He didn't, always, but more often than not... greed wasn't the domain of demons alone, they were simply better at it than humans. There were plenty of humans who had a spark of demon in them, a spark of coveting, of hoarding, of putting far too much value on something that could be taken away with a snap of his fingers.