- Shaktar proverb
She sits and stares as the lit end of the cigarette gloworms its way up towards her fingers, letting it nearly burn her before she reaches and stubs it out in the overflowing ashtray. The lights are out and its raining outside as it always is on nights like this, the wind blowing sheets of water against the window spitefully, mockingly. She shivers, shudders once and lights another, taking a drag and watching it burn down to the stub. Like the last one, and the one before. Waiting, for what she doesn't know, but with a kind of hollow patience that makes her sure whatever comes will not be good. The craving is just beginning, the cigarettes are just something to pass the time, the drink just dulls the edge slightly. She needs it, not bad yet but it will get worse. So she waits.
It's nearly three before they call, she's woken from dark dreams by shrill tones. She thinks about not answering, searching for some other way, but that's no longer an option. Her voice feels like someone else's when she speaks, harsh, unrecognisable.
"Yes?"
"It's me."
"Yes?"
"It's time."
"Did you hear me? I said it's-"
"Time, yes. I heard you. The- the usual place?"
"The usual place."
The far off click as the other party hangs up; the melancholy, distant, dial tone; finally static and an error message repeating itself, an automated mantra.
She's taken to carrying around the knife Maddy gave her, before Maddy went away. It's a wickedly sharp, serrated blade she slips into the inside pocket of her jacket when she goes out. Especially at night. The sheath has some sort of sharperning mechanism built into it, the edge remains worthy of her respect despite her lack of care in its maintenance. The blade has been blackened by one of its previous owners, and the dull metal just seems to absorb the light around it. The blade holds a strange fascination for her during the day. Sometimes she will sit and hold it and just feel it in her hands, lying inert yet powerful in its own way, lacking only the will, the direction needed for it to serve its purpose. It comforts her.
So she makes her way out into the darkness, another shadow running from the neon of the main strips into the deeper darkness of Downtown. Flitting between doorways, sheltering from the downpour that chills her to the bone no matter what she wears. She's shaking now, and her vision blurs slightly. She needs it. She grips the knife tighter in her pocket, close to her. She picks up the pace and hustles on, splashing her way through the night. When she left the flat all she could see were other shadows, all around, half visible in the half light. Now her craving is all she knows, her root and centre, all she is and all she ever will be. She needs it. She picks up the pace and hustles on.
One shadow has been with her all the way, a patch of artificial darkness keeping pace unobtrusively. It slips through the alleys and the doorways unseen; unheard. It stops once, cocks its head like a cat and waits until the woman turns the corner into the next alley. It reaches some kind of decision and starts climbing fluidly up a rusted fire escape. It makes no sound.
Whyaren'ttheyherewhyaren'ttheyherewherearetheywhereare -
Her panicked reverie broken by a heavy, clawed hand on her shoulder. She flinches despite herself and she can feel but not hear the stifled laughter deep in its chest. She turns, slowly, determined to get it and go. Just get it and go. She needs it. The two of them look at her. She looks at them. The large one lets her shoulder go, its huge paw returns to working something out of one cavernous nostril. In this barely lit back road she can't see its face properly, can't see its flayed-skin visage; she can only make out the glinting of dark eyes and the flash of those always-bared teeth. She shivers despite herself, makes a move to withdraw the money from her pocket.
Instantly the creature is alert, produces a wicked looking blade from somewhere, which starts to hum, a maddeningly insistent noise that makes her sick. It closes in, slightly hunched, and pats her down clumsily with one hand whilst the other holds the blade flat against her cheek. She can feel herself tensing as the searching hand creeps closer to the knife - why did she bring it why why oh shit oh shit oh - but it has found the money and withdraws, flicking through the notes.
The blade also withdraws.
The shorter one speaks, voice muffled through the mask he always wears but powerful, in control. She can feel herself shrinking beneath his will even now.
"Is it all there, Cal?"
Before she can answer the large one shakes his head, opens his mouth: a grin. The blade disappears. She is theirs now.
The air tastes faintly of copper. Her heart beats against the blade. Her voice is thick with fear, need, she needs it:
"Nearly. Look, I need -"
His voice, icy, amused
"I know what you need. And you know our price. Unless we can come to another. arrangement."
Her head droops; the large one laughs, booming around the tiny space. Again then, she thinks. Again. Seconds stretch taut. Then she nods, steps back deeper into the shadow and stares at the floor. The large one laughs again and backs away, working at the other nostril. The small one is unbuckling, swaggering towards her. Suddenly he has his hands underneath her jacket, his face next to hers and she can smell him, she nearly gags she needs it but not this, his hands are slick with sweat, there are tiny firefly lights in the air and his hands are slick with -
Blood.
He screams.
She looks on, dumbfounded. His hands are lacerated, welling blood; she feels something warm against her chest, opens her jacket. The knife is warm to her touch, steaming in the chill night air.
He screams again; his partner lumbers over, blade drawn: eager for a taste of the action, sinews visible, bulging as the adrenaline kicks in and it howls, closing the distance between them with three swift bounds -and then something takes over her. She knows what to do, how to stand, so that it runs - straight into the outstretched blade of the knife.
It severs an artery. The thing collapses onto her, arcing blood and winding her. Its dead, dead weight is on her legs now, the humming blade, now inert, clatters harmlessly to the floor. She finds herself sobbing, screaming, getitoffmegetitoff struggling, fighting, clawing at the thing on top of her. Hysterical.
To no avail.
The other one has regained his composure, more fireflies hover about his hands and she can see they have healed. Been healed. The air tastes of copper again and she knows he's one of them, if he can do that to his hands just by thinking about it whats he going to do to --do to - to- She stops struggling, the knife still warm in her hand but pinned so hopelessly beneath her now and she thought she heard something snap and oh, oh, he's taking off his mask, oh-
He takes off his mask. It has been quite some time. His insect eyes adjust well to the gloom around him, although they have grown accustomed to the augmented senses fed him by the visor. He boosts his vision for a second to make sure he won't be seen: fireflies glow briefly around his face as he sweeps the alley. Something up there, on the roof of that - ah no. Just the rain. Just the rain. He advances on the girl, blades as hard as iron emerging from his arms, his hands, his fingertips.
She doesn't scream. He is glad. He will make her.
Krafe had been with him from the beginning. He deserved a better death. Or at least a more useful one. He spears the body of his comrade on his right hand, lifts it easily and dumps the inert mass behind him, crooning all the while to the girl. She tries to run but it wasn't her arm she heard snap it was a leg and now she does scream and passes out briefly from the pain.
Krafe deserves retribution, and he deserves some fun: he waits until she wakes up.
She stares into insect eyes, sees herself reflected in their mirrored gaze and sobs, begs it to stop. It does not. It rips fastidiously, meticulously, at her clothing until it can get to her, then lowers itself and -
The knife is suddenly warm in her free hand. It takes hold, drives itself into the mirrored eye. Deep in. The thing screams, once, and dies: pus, blood, ichor weeping from the wound. She passes out; comes to.
She stares into insect eyes, dulled now; fireflies all gone. She tries to move but cannot, the pain is too much and her leg will not bear her weight. She cries, sobs wracking her body.
Time passes.
A shadow flows down from the roof of a nearby building, pauses briefly and cocks its head as before. It surveys the three inert bodies in front of it and makes a cursory examination of the two dead. It stoops, picks something up from the body of the insect-man then drags the corpse off the woman. It waits until the woman wakes. She screams, tries to threaten this new enemy with a dark blade. The darker figure bats it aside and the now useless weapon is dropped from nerveless fingers.
"I have something you want," says the shadow. "Something you need." It speaks in reasoned tones
The craving rises in her, ohyesohyesohyes pleaseplease
"There is a price."
anythinganythingohpleaseplease
"I will give you your drug. For now."
He does so, holds out the little baggie: she takes it with her free hand and closes her eyes, stupidly grateful,
thankyouthankyouohthankyou
"And I will make you whole again."
There is a sickening, crunching noise, pain flares in her leg for a brief incandescent moment and then is gone. She sees tiny lights again and smells. candyfloss. And somehow her head seems clearer. No more aching need. Gone. Clean gone.
aaaah-whatwhatIdon'tunder-
"That is all for tonight. In time you will master the blade, however for now take the knife and your drugs and run home."
I -
But the shadow is gone, slipped away into the sickening grey of dawn, lost in the rain. She wraps the tatters of her clothes around her; stands; walks a few paces. And the blade is cold again and dark again but she shudders in fear and longing for its warmth, its power. She needs it. She tucks it in close to her, feels it nestle against her ribs. As the bodies bleed and stiffen she heads for home. She doesn't look back.
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