Pavon Plumewing's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Pavon sat on a steel shelf in his bunker and stared at a blank invitation card. He had tried a dozen names. Each one sounded wrong. The Feather Den. Plumewing's Hideaway. Every phrase made his lair sound like a cheap tent at a fair. No rich man would sail across the water for a joke. He tapped his pen and waited for a better idea. A soft scraping came from the dark end of the bunker. A small figure waddled into the light. It had a round pink body, a dark red cap, and tiny hairy feet. The mushroom boy climbed onto the shelf and pointed one stubby arm at the wall. Pavon followed the gesture. He saw a long crystal rod leaning in the corner, twin cherries glowing at its base and a gemmed crest on top. "You want me to look at that?" Pavon asked. The mushroom boy nodded fast. Pavon lifted the rod. Along the upper gem ran a fine etched line, like falling water. Where the crystal met the light, tiny sparks drifted through it. He turned it over and saw one word cut into the silver band: LUXE. The mushroom boy clapped his little hands. Pavon breathed the name aloud. "Luxe." It sounded like money. It sounded like marble halls and yachts. He wrote it on the card, then paused. A name alone was not enough. A place like Luxe needed a face. A guest so beautiful that rich men would kill to stand near him. As he thought it, the shadows shifted. A figure stepped out from behind the crystal rod, as if the word had called him. He was small and perfect, built like a carved statue, with dark horns curling from his hair. A single fig leaf hung at his hips. He looked at Pavon with lazy red eyes and smiled. "You said my name," the stranger said. "Damien Luxe. The little incubus. And you needed a face for your hall." Pavon's mouth went dry. Here was the answer to both problems at once. "You heard all that?" "I hear every man who wants what I have." Damien walked a slow circle around Pavon, studying his rainbow tail. "This place could work. The name works. But it needs me in it, or it stays a cellar." Pavon spread his feathers wide. He knew a bargain when it stood in front of him. "Then stay. Be the jewel of Luxe. I bring the rich men down. You make them want to come back." Damien touched one cherry on the crystal rod and let it swing. "I'll stay. But I don't work for free, peacock. You'll owe me." Pavon wrote LUXE across the top of every card. The lair had a name at last. The invitations would fly. But now he owed a debt to an incubus, and he did not yet know its price.