Page 19 of Not With the Eyes

The doors opened, and Oberon was escorted further into the room, to a small-ish square in the middle of it where she was chained in place, at each ankle and at her wrists.

Several meters away, behind a desk bigger than most beds, was the mother of Satan herself. Her face filled with offense and anger as she took in Oberon's appearance.

Oberon smiled, which just made her bristle further. "Hello, Marge. Long time no see."

"Get out," Margaux said to the guards, and glared when one of them was stupid enough to try and voice an objection.

The guards went, the doors sliding almost soundlessly shut behind them.

Margaux moved around the desk, the large room echoing with the sound of her four-inch patent leather pumps, glossy, no-nonsense black that went with the black pinstripe suit she wore, a dove gray shirt beneath that gleamed with mother of pearl buttons. Her hair, more gray than black now, was pulled back in a chignon, and her lipstick was the same power red she'dworn all her life. Her makeup was more subdued now, clearly going for a matriarch look rather than the femme fatal she'd played to in her younger days.

There was no mistaking her relation to Scones, though her eyes weren't mismatched, and were utterly dead and cold. No matter how grim Scones could get, the hard life he'd led, there was always life in his eyes, a warmth that Oberon suddenly, abruptly missed.

"You haven't changed," Margaux said. "Still disrespectful. Still rude. Still arrogant and foolish."

"We all have to live with the mistakes we've made. You mademewhen you murdered my children."

"Collateral damage, which you and your thugs would know all about."

"Not half as well as G.O.D., or did you forget that's how you also made the mistake you've labeled Countdown?" Oberon knew exactly how pissed off she and the others were about that, a nobody insurance salesman who outwitted one of their best and did a whole lot of damage in the process. Without a single bit of power in him.

Her mouth pinched at that, but she only said, "Speaking of mistakes, where is my worthless son?"

"Do you think I bothered to ask where he was going to hide before we parted ways?"

Margaux sighed like an exhausted mother with a bratty child. "You have some idea. There's only so many places you and your fellow cretins can hide."

"Yet you've only found us once," Oberon replied. "Give it up, Marge. I don't have anything to tell you, and even if I didn't, I wouldn't.Even then, Fortune is way ahead of you and would be at none of the hidey holes I know about. Scones and I went off without permission, so I don't know where the others are, wherehe is, or what they're going to do next. Fortune doesn't look kindly on Anti-Heroes that fall out of line."

That put upon sigh again as she folded her arms across her chest. "Do you really want to do this the hard way, Oberon?"

"We both know the hard way is the only way for me, you stupid bitch. Especially making your life as hard as possible. Speaking of making people hard, your son is a good ride. Can't have gotten that sort of skill from you, not as frigid and selfish as you are, so I assume it's like father, like son."

That put a crack in Margaux's ice queen façade. It smoothed away in the next heartbeat, but the blow had landed. Oberon sent a silent apology to Scones, making a note to apologize properly when they met again. "Somehow I'm not surprised, not after everything else I've learned recently about my own flesh and blood."

"No one deserves to be stabbed in the back by family more than you. Look, can we just get to the part where you start hurting me? I'm kind of bored with the utterly predictable chitchat."

Margaux laughed. "In a hurry to join your family, ma petite?"

Was that the best she had? Oberon remained silent, letting her think she'd landed her hit. She had nowhere to be, after all, she could drag this out. Anyway, whatever her boasts, she wasn't actually in a hurry to get to the torture portion of this visit.

Drawing closer, the click of her heels ringing, Margaux brushed back a strand of Oberon's hair. "I really was beautiful in my day. You even got the mole I had removed about ten years ago. Excellent detail work, but there are reasons they gave you the designation Oberon, I suppose."

"After a Faerie King who threw a temper tantrum and tricked his beloved wife into loving a man with the head of adonkey? Or did the G.O.D. name me after one of the other tales of Oberon? Or is it because I can be anyone and everyone's dream, and you'll never entirely know if you were asleep or awake the entire time?"

That put another crack in her façade. "Oberon, because nobody can trust their eyes when you're around."

"Well, that's boring." Oberon sighed. "What are you doing here, anyway? Shouldn't you be at your precious summit?"

"It was pushed back a couple of days. Some things are more important than talking incessantly to people too stupid to think for themselves."

"Surprised they're letting you do anything, given it's your own son who's been murdering Dogs left and right."

Thatreallyhit the mark. Didn't put a crack in her façade, but a whole fracture.

"Are you under supervision, even up here on top of the world? Are they waiting to see if you've been a rat the whole time?"

Margaux strode forward and backhanded her, the large diamond ring on her hand cutting Oberon's cheek. "Shut your fucking mouth. You're trash. You were trash back then; you're trash now."

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