Hello. Nice to meet you. I know this is all rather overwhelming, but you’ll settle in time. Let me tell you a story while you get there; something to pass the time. Does that sound good?
…
I guess I should know better than asking when you haven’t any choice but to listen. Still, it’s best to be polite. This is a very special story. Not quite a unique one, but rare enough that you’ve never encountered its like.
It starts, as many good tales do, with a Woman. This woman was a thief and an adventurer and a lover and, for the purpose of this story, the most important woman in the universe. She was also, for all that made her exceptional among her kind, a dreadfully ordinary woman.
Ordinary, that is, until she met Space Monsters. The Monsters used her; they broke her mind and body. They invariably bent down low to toy with her and prove beyond doubt that she was utterly worthless so far as the cosmos cared. And by extension they showed her that every and any action she took would be as meaningless in that scale as she herself was. It was an encounter that would have destroyed any person and she was no exception; she walked away from the confrontation fundamentally different from how she had entered.
But she did walk away.
Where another would have left – at best – a shallow shell of the person they once were, the core of this woman remained very much intact. She embraced the meaningless of her own existence and in doing so realized that the incomprehensible creatures who menaced her were universally no greater than she.
With this knowledge in mind the Woman, Ada, set forth determined to either make herself every bit as “important” as those creatures or else drag to them down to her level just to prove that she could.
…
Now you’re starting to get it. But this is just backstory; a lens necessary for proper perspective. The actual story takes place some few hundred years later, in the twisted streets of London.
- - -
It started in a pub, or leaving one in any case. I had been waiting inside for most of the night. Waiting to meet an informant of sorts, though he didn’t know he was at the time. Probably never would considering how drunk he was when he left. I passed through the heavy door moments behind him, just in time to see the idiot as he stumbled into an ally across the street. He made for an almost insultingly easy mark.
The alley was an unlit, narrow gap between two buildings and uncharacteristically deep for its width. There was no space to hide but neither was there any need. After a few steps you would be hidden in the shade of flanking buildings to anyone in the street. Well, anyone who didn’t have the eyes for it anyway; a curse tonight as I could see just how filthy it really was. With a grimace I raised my many-patched skirt and stepped into the crevice.
When I caught up to the man he was pissing on a wall. The sight gave me Goosebumps; I did NOT want to think about what else was on these walls, but in truth it was a fairly fortuitous event. His drunkness would have easy clearly the alley for a far more public street had he not stopped to relieve himself. Instead I had him completely to myself in this hidden crack of an alley, utterly oblivious and with privacy guaranteed.
“Oi! Miss! Did you lose your way?”
Just once I’d like to say that without someone showing up.
“Nah mate. Saw her come right after that bloke down this here alley.” By this point my mark was well aware of both myself and the approaching thugs. There were at least three of them, two behind us and one ahead, maybe more outside the alley proper. “I expect she’s some kind of whore she is, looking to proposition our lucky fellow here.”
The talkative one was the smallest, with a relatively clean shave and knife poking out of his belt. He wisely chose to follow behind a much larger, dirtier goon. The man opposite was similarly large and trying to look menacing with a cricket bat. Real waste of talent too. No one but me could likely see him as more than a blob in the dark and I had seen things so much worse that this was almost comedic.
Not to disappoint, our “lucky” target seemed torn between a half-hearted attempt to defend me from the ruffians and to try run over batsman in a vain attempt to escape.
“Don’t seem fair do that. I think it’s about time the both of you share the wealth so to speak.” Goons A and B laughed. “And if you ain’t generous enough, well, I’m sure we can be compelling.”
That sent my informant over the edge, in hind sight yet another reason it was fortunate he had cleared his bladder beforehand. He went flying down the alley as fast as his wobbly legs would let him and even looked like he might be able to pass the brute ahead of him. It really was a shame that he couldn’t see as well as I, otherwise he might have been able to avoid slipping on shit two steps from the goon.
Comedy gold. But unfortunately Goon B wasn’t a big fan of slapstick as I. He decided to start an encore performance with a well-placed kick to the gut and things quickly escalated from there.
“Don’t touch his head!” I reached into my pocket.
“…What did you say miss?”
“I need that pretty little face of his intact. Can’t have you simpletons ruining it.”
“I think, little miss, that you are failing to comprehend the situation that you’re in. I was going to save you for myself but seeing as you’ve got a bit of lip on you I think I’ll let big ol’ Rob here take a swing with you first.” Goon A, Rob I suppose, smiled a toothy grin.
“I really wouldn’t advise it.” Loaded and ready to go.
“Oh, but I would. Feel free to rough her up Rob. Ain’t her face I’m interested in anyway.”
Rob approached me slowly, unbuckling his belt as he walked. I let him get close, closer than I really should have, but I wanted as much distance between him and his friend as possible. When he was nearly within arm’s reach (his arm’s reach anyway) I lashed out with as much force as I could muster. My hand fell short of but the heavy iron ball at the end of my sling did not. It connected with his cheek. The impact stunned him and probably dislocated his jaw but the angle had been too shallow to shatter it. I immediately followed with a kick to the groin that put him on his off-balanced ass, clearing the view to a very unexpecting ringleader.
Putting a knife into the back of his neck was trivial.
Goon B was a little harder. He couldn’t see exactly what was happening but he certainly heard his friends hit the ground.
“Wh-what did you do? Stay away you bitch! Or…or I’ll bash this bloke’s head in before you can get near!”
“I have a counter offer.”
This time I got a loud, satisfying crack as the iron ball collided with his nose. His bat clattered to the ground as he took hold his face and screamed. Or he tried to scream anyway. He hardly had time to start before I broke his bat over his head. That just left the buffoon who had pantsed himself. A quick kick and a stomp took care of him as well.
During the excitement my mark only quivered on the ground in terror. Not that he could have gotten away had he tried. Between his inebriation and the sorry state the previous beating had left him in he would have needed a much more drawn out conflict to stand, much less flee.
Fortunately, I didn’t need him to stand.
I reached down and, with a heavy jerk, pulled him up against the wall. His coat was filthy from sick and whatever else he picked up off the ground. His eyes frantic and his voice too winded and panicked to do more than mumble words. Thanks. Help. Why. Who. Really he just kept going on like that. Nothing to help it now. It was a shame though that he was so rattled. It would make what was coming that much worse.
Reaching deep into my pocket one final time I began chanting in a foreign tongue, too alien to properly grasp, as I unleash the storm within my mind’s eye. The ever-present storm, often suppressed but never gone, quickly picked up speed. There was once a time when it only tore at the borders of my perception, a time long gone, for now it completely engulfed me.
My hand withdrew from fabric with an iron flask. Once opened I poured its contents over my opposite hand. The grimy, vicious fluid pooled and coalesced over my hand. Not a drop struck the ground.
The chant began to pick up now. She saw the black-speckled pits. Memories flooded my mind and unnatural aspects began to reveal themselves. Of course, Cthylla…I wouldn’t want to have to blind myself.
I raised my now splotchy-gray arm, poised above a helpless man. “After all, his brain is full of worms”
I slammed down onto, into, the man’s head. My mind flooded with new memories. Memories of Albert. Memories from him.
