2. We Own Hell, Darling
By nightfall the penthouse smelled like regret and sandalwood.
Silas was draped over the couch like a dying opera singer, one arm flung dramatically across his forehead, while the other gripped the latest edition of Interior Design for Crypts — a publication so pretentious even Silas sometimes struggled with engaging with it.
Occasionally, he made a noise — half sigh, half groan — just to remind the room he was suffering from chronic boredom. His custom made silk dressing gown made quiet shush-shush noises like the breeze also desired to undress him.
“You know the wind can’t actually flirt with you, right? Go make yourself pretty — if we’re going to lie to the board, we might as well be hot while we do it,” retorted Rufus, cross-legged on his cushion on the deep walnut window sill.
”Can’t yet, Martha is running me a rose petal bath and it is still too hot. Do you want me to risk blistering my beautiful skin? Agelessness doesn’t come for free, you know. And you ate the intern that gave me my daily facial. He had very talented hands.”
Rufus ignored him.
He was too busy trying to expense a million dollar custom Italian coffin made of aged sandalwood and encrusted with rubies as “essential office furniture.”
“They’re going to flag that,” Silas muttered without looking up.
Rufus clicked ‘submit’ with a flourish. “They’re too scared to flag anything anymore.”
Silas lifted his head, just barely. His normally regimental black curls were a gorgeous, furious mess. “Because you fired the last CFO. Mid-board meeting. Literally threw him out the window.”
“Soft launch for our new leadership principles,” Rufus said cheerfully, as if Silas hadn't had to cash in a millennia-long favour with a top werewolf lawyer to mop up the, quite literal, pieces.
Silas lost his momentary interest and starting reading a segment on revitalising your dungeon space for hybrid work, “We’re going to hell.”
“We own hell, darling.” Rufus tapped his pen against the glass table. “Or at least we will. Once the Series B closes.”
A long, painful silence.
Silas broke it, voice hoarse with boredom. “Do you even remember what we do as entrepreneurs anymore?”
Rufus considered this. Twirled the pen. Tilted his head like a curious crow.
“We transform. Empower. Disrupt. And occasionally build something that might do… something.”
“That's every company," Silas said.
"Exactly." Rufus grinned. "We're everything. We are the eternal pivot."
Silas groaned softly. Like he was dying. Again. Sometimes he wished he could.
Outside, the city was a glittering carcass.
Inside, two ancient things played at being important.
One played at being new. The other played at anything but the truth.
Rufus kicked his feet up on the desk, knocking over a crystal award for ‘Ethical Blood Founder of the Year.’
"Anyway," he said lightly, "I ordered you a coffin too. It's got an embroidered lining made from Siberian Lily silk. Very vegan."
Silas closed his eyes.
”Well I’m not signing for it. Last time I did that for one of your ‘deliveries’, I nearly went to prison for smuggling human bones. How droll,” he sighed. “If I’m going to prison, I want it to be for public indecency during an orgy with a legion of dryads.”
Rufus snorted and started scrolling excitedly.
“Oh damn,” he said. “We should build OnlyFangs, but for dryads. I can’t believe that it doesn’t exist already.”
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