Urban Nordica: Dead on Arrival
Nasty Things to Nasty People
The ride back to Ásgard is long and not just the least bit awkward, mostly thanks to Miriah sitting sullenly in the back, glaring off into space and thinking noisily over her history with DeLioncourt. Humans think really loudly, which is something they don’t notice but I sure as hell do, and while generally it’s just annoying background noise, sometimes it can be useful to know exactly what the people around you are thinking. Like in board meetings. Or now, for that matter. Dee had already given me the short and long on what she knew about DeLioncourt before I dropped her off, but what Dee thinks she’s read and what Miriah has actually experienced are two fairly different things; sort of like reading the plot synopsis before watching the film. Dee’s report was more analytical – DeLioncourt-as-a-post-feminist-symbol-in-comic-literature – whereas Radio Free Miriah is a lot more… visceral. Slowly, more and more of her personality falls into place; specifically, why she didn’t simply pack up her shit and get the hell outta Dodge when I suggested to her that this might be a good idea. On the one hand – the DeLioncourt-as-a-person hand – it was revenge; her simple plain desire to see people suffer. On the other hand – the DeLioncourt-as-a-character hand – she can no more leave Miriah than I could have left Odin, all those years ago. At the time I had reasons for it – lots and lots and lots of ‘reasons’ – thought it was the best decision and all that, but now that I’m old and scarred and gifted with hindsight it becomes nothing short of apparent that the only reason I never left my brother – never left Ásgard – was that my Wyrd, the Story itself, simply wouldn’t let me leave. Just like it will keep Miriah and DeLioncourt twirled together until the End of All Things; whatever that will be for them.
No-one acts rationally in a story.
Dee’s tale was case in point; how easy it was for her to get close to DeLioncourt, to play off DeLioncourt’s stereotype off the tight group of everlasting friends, the Scooby Gang. How easy it was to seed the germ in the woman’s mind that Dee wouldn’t be accepted back into the fold once she had shown interest in the Dark Side. Thing is, Dee was never lying about saying she would have liked to see DeLioncourt shake me up, to ‘win’ in that outrageously movie-villain kind of way. She would have, but that’s just Dee, and DeLioncourt was never a real threat. Thought it was fun to see if she could be made into one.
The fact that DeLioncourt decided to gather herself a little gang was surprising, though pretty standard supervillain faire. That she’s using the same kind of kids that I myself usually watch over via places like the wishroom rankles somewhat, and I make a mental note to go make some personal visits when I get back. Which I will unfortunately have to do, since Dee is convinced DeLioncourt has some kind of Evil Scheme going on with her little brats. I sigh irritably at the thought, and somewhat unexpectedly Sigmund gives my thigh a light, self-conscious squeeze.
“It’ll be alright,” he tells me with a shy smile as the world spins away beneath us. I give him a rueful grin in return, but it’s the snort from the back that makes him jump and turn around. “Miriah!” he exclaims, and then, “Erm, hello.”
“Hello yourself, princess,” she says. “You can finally see me?”
“We’re not in Midgard anymore, Toto,” I say, though I only get a brief glare in the rearview mirror before Miriah turns her eyes away quickly. She’s still annoyed at me for threatening to put her in the trunk. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have. Maybe tied her up and stuck her on the back seat, but probably not in the trunk. After all, wouldn’t want her and DeLioncourt helping each other escape; I’ve got plans for DeLioncourt yet.
The rest of the ride occurs largely without incident; I hum to the radio, Sigmund naps, Miriah broods, DeLioncourt remains silent. When at long last we pull up to the looming gates of Ásgard, for once I don’t stop the car, instead driving it right along the path and up to Idavöll itself. Curious einherjar gather around as I pull it to a stop, and I get a few comments along the line of “nice car!”. I make sure to thank everyone by name, and to ask them about whatever the hell it is that they’re doing nowadays. Seems the big thing at the moment is setting up a kind of marketplace thing; no-one has any real use for money up here, but the various artists and craftspersons like to have somewhere to display their wares and perform basic trade. I make sure to be very interested in what everyone’s doing – I am, honestly, only my mind is understandably on other things right now – and let the ringleaders of the project know that if they need anything built to let me know. When I finally manage to disentangle myself from the interested throng, everyone seems happy enough which is enough to convince me I’m doing a Good Job. As usual when she watches me with the einherjar she’s got an oddly calculating look on her face, but I chose to ignore it, instead gesture to her abruptly.
“Follow me,” I say, and here she doesn’t really have an opportunity to say no. Sigmund has long-since peeled off into the crowd; he’s a lot less noticeable than I am, and people are more likely to speak candidly to him. Well, they don’t really have a choice in that; Sigmund’s ability to detect lies isn’t particularly well known, which makes him the most excellent reconnaissance man in situations like this. I’ve deliberately not given him the specifics of what’s going on – he can’t tell a lie to save his life, either – only instructed him to ask around and see what he can pick up. Hopefully, by the time he’s through we won’t know any more than we did before. I say hopefully, because if Sigmund gets nothing other than rumors it means no-one he’s spoken to is in on whatever the hell is going on around here; something which I’m very much hoping is the case. His other function, of course, is to categorically spread around the notion that I was home with him the night of the murder. Sigmund is so ultimately believable that the alibi will be more credible coming from him, even though arguably he has just as much reason to lie about it as I do.
Anyway, with Sigmund gone it leaves just Miriah and myself as I lead us across the fields and copses of Ásgard. She is walking about half a pace behind me, still sullen and angry. Eventually she says, “What do you want with me?”
“You’ll see,” I say, mostly just to start a fight. I think Miriah needs a fight, right about now.
“Damnit, can’t you ever give anyone a straight answer?”
I just chuckle at that. “I prefer putting people in untenable positions wherein they are forced to trust me despite knowing in their hearts they shouldn’t… or hadn’t you noticed?”
Miriah looks away. “I don’t get you.”
“Yeah you do,” I say. “You just wish you didn’t, because I’m not neat like you want me to be. You don’t know how I can go from seeming so nice, so harmlessly ridiculous, to so vicious so quickly. You don’t like how I stand around Fighting the Good Fight with Bad Methods. Most importantly, you don’t like the parts of yourself you see in me. It’s okay, though,” I add, when she refuses to answer or even acknowledge that I’m saying anything at all. “I get that a lot. Ambiguity, you know; people either love it or they hate it.” I chuckle at my own irony.
The path we’re following curves around underneath some giant, carved standing stones, and all of a sudden we’re standing in a kind of ad hoc orchard. In the center stands a rather abused looking old apple tree, limbs drooping heavily from the weight of the golden fruit hanging there. Scattered around are the new additions; much younger trees cultivated from the fruit of the original. More initiatives from the eager-faced young einherjar since I took up my throne. For a while, the original tree was thought dead and lifeless from Ragnarökk, and the einherjar suggested planting a new tree from the seeds of the few apples that had been spared. Baldr hadn’t allowed it – for whatever loopy reason – and so the pile of fruit had been slowly whittled away. Fearing the treasure of the golden apples was about to be lost forever, a few einherjar conspired to steal a single fruit, which they secretly planted underneath the boughs of the old tree; the effects were dramatic and near-instantaneous, and not only did the new tree grow, but it’s power bought the old one back to full life. Baldr was furious, but by the time he found out he was also a bit too dead, and I hold onto none of his desires to retain the traditions of Old Ásgard. They were a crock of shit, anyhow; who says we can only have one magic apple tree?
A gleaming-faced young einherjar girl comes up to meet me, curtseying prettily. “Hello, my Lord,” she says.
“Hi Dora,” I say, good-naturedly. Idun – the Ásynja traditionally charged with looking after the golden apples of youth – rises from the stone bench in the middle of the orchard. She’s looking a lot better now than the last time I saw her, haggard and mourning the death of not just her husband but her tree, which I’m glad for. Her new bevy of virginal einherjar assistants seem to be doing her a power of good.
“What brings you here, frumkveða flærðanna?” she asks, and I wince inwardly at the old title. Idun is one of those Æsir who is likely never, ever going to forgive me for the past.
“You’re looking well,” I say, truthfully. Idun just raises an eyebrow. “I need an apple,” I say. “But you are looking well. So are the trees, for that matter; it’s a veritable orchard in here.”
Dora – 15, died 1940 when the British bombed
“Of course!” Another curtsey and the girl skips enthusiastically off. I don’t bother trying to make small-talk with Idun in the meantime, and for her own part the goddess simply ignores Miriah like just about everyone else around here. When Dora returns I take her apple and kiss her flirtatiously on the hand in thanks. She blushes and breaks into uncontrollable giggles, to which Idun just rolls her eyes – no doubt remembering that, once upon a time, that was her. I remember, too, and wink at her conspiratorially. She scoffs in response, flustered as usual by my attitude.
“Now off with you! Before you turn the apples sour.”
“Righty right, ma’am,” I say, to which both women just look vaguely confused. I give them an nonchalant wave and I drag Miriah away from the orchard, taking a bite out of the apple for good measure. I don’t really like apples, but these are super-special magic apples. Apples of the gods, as it were; the kind of apples that make every other apple you’ve ever had seem like worm-infested rot. They are, in short, some damn good apples.
When we’re far enough away from the orchard and everyone else, I stop Miriah and hold the shimmering fruit out to her. “Bite,” I command, briefly. This is so totally against the rules it’s not funny, but screw that; I might need Miriah later, and I’m not going to have her disappear on me in the meantime. “One bite,” I add.
Miriah looks at me suspiciously. “Why?”
“Just do it.”
She looks between me and the apple and few times – mind not unsubtly thinking about certain other apples in literature – before eventually sighing and leaning forward to take a bite. She gets about one chew in before she gasps, eyes rolling back in her head as her legs buckle underneath her. Chuckling, I catch her before she falls and lower her gently onto the grass, where she spends a few minutes stuck between trembling and chewing and moaning somewhat unsubtly. Still trying to stifle laughter, I finish off the rest of the apple myself and wait for her to come ‘round again. When she does she’s breathing hard, face flushed and pupils heavily dilated.
“You… asshole,” she breathes. “What was that?”
“That, luv, was the Fruit of the Gods, the Apples of Eternal Youth.” I wink at her. “Like eating an orgasm, isn’t it?”
She blushes furiously and pulls herself away from me.
“How do you feel?” I ask, and just get a glare in response. “Oh settle down, I’m being serious.”
Miriah sighs and seems to take stock of herself for a moment. Eventually, she frowns. “Better,” she says. “I can’t really describe it, but… I feel stronger. More alive somehow.”
I nod. “Good. You just took a bite of life itself, metaphorically speaking. We don’t usually allow anyone other than the gods to eat them – for reasons I think you can probably guess – but I’ll make an exception in your case.”
“Thanks, I guess…” Miriah says, still wary. I just laugh and pull myself to my feet. “Anyway, as fun as this is; unfortunately I’ve got other things to take care of.”
Miriah stands, and her face goes dark. “Like revenge?” she asks, but I just shake my head.
“Like a lesson,” I say. “It’s much, much more nasty.”
After losing Miriah and her newfound life off into Ásgard, I set about finding myself a pair of sturdy looking einherjar. I don’t have to look very far, picking a pair of grizzled old Vikings – Guðniútr and Véþorn – up from where they are sparring lazily near Idavöll. Veterans from the old days, like most of the old guard they are grudgingly happy with the new Ásgard they see being slowly built up around them; grateful at heart for the better food and modern comforts and the removal of the obligation to constantly reenact their deaths as bloody preparation for the Ragnarökk. Like everyone else, they are outraged that someone would dare commit murder within Ásgard’s sacred walls, and like everyone else they leap at the chance to help bring the perpetrator to justice. Their instructions are simple – stand at the entrance to Breidablik and don’t let anyone in, no matter the circumstances, until I say they can go – and they get to their task with dutiful seriousness.
Meanwhile, I fetch the car from Idavöll and drive it lazily up the back roads of Ásgard until I too reach Baldr’s the shimmering hall. Breidablik is set back a fair way from the new construction in Ásgard, one of the few places left standing after Ragnarökk. I don’t live here – nor would I ever – though I suppose technically it does belong to me, and so the place lies mostly empty and wholly abandoned. I wave at Guðniútr and Véþorn as I drive up, and obligingly they open the hall’s massive golden doors wide enough for me to drive right through.
“Remember,” I tell them as I pass, “no-one is allowed in.” They nod gravely in response.
Breidablik is one of the old school style of halls, which is to say it’s a bit like a giant warehouse built out of ornately carved logs and covered in enough gold to feed the whole of Africa for a hundred years. There are long row tables set up inside, but the place is big enough that I can simply drive the car right into it with room to spare. When I do so, the huge hall doors are shut behind me with a resounding boom that would leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that this place is very definitely closed for business. The hall has no windows, and with the doors closed everything plunges into darkness. I flick the car’s headlight’s on in response, sending a long surgical beam of light slicing out in front of me, illuminating up the length of the hall towards the head table’s gilded throne. I always hated thrones.
Grimly, I get out of the car and drag a chair out from one of the tables, setting it just in front of the headlights in the center of the room. That done, I start investigating the walls of the room looking for a decent knife. These places are always decorated with weapons, and I don’t have to look very far before my eyes set on a short, leaf-blended dirk that looks neither magical nor cursed, and that seems to still have most of an edge on it. I return with it to the car, take a deep breath to steel myself, and finally pop open the trunk.
“Fuck me.”
The thing I hate the most about the dead is the fact that they have a tendency to shit themselves. Not only is this not particularly dignified for the dead themselves, but when they happen to be in the trunk of my car it’s not particularly good for the upholstery either.
Annoyed, but not entirely surprised, I drag DeLioncourt’s lifeless form out of the car and, lying her down on the ground in front of the headlights, I begin to cut her body free. It becomes apparent fairly quickly what she died of when I rip the tape from her mouth and a stream of vomity, bloody mucus pours out, and I hiss at the memory of my own portentous words upon first putting her in the boot of my car, torn halfway between pride at being right and irritation at being, well, right. I clean her up as quickly as I can; immolating the shit and vomit off her body easily. Unfortunately this also takes her clothes – I spare only her distinctive, cross-shaped choker, which I take for myself – so I prop her lifeless body up in the chair and return to the back of the hall. There’s a small door here that leads towards Baldr’s living quarters, and I rummage around in the dark until I find an old white linen dress I supposed used to belong to Nana – Baldr’s old wife – once upon a time. It more or less fits DeLioncourt, the whiteness of the robs reflecting starkly the whiteness of her own skin, and she almost manages to look attractive for a moment – face soft and stripped of the cruel lines that define it in life, ample bust and curved body hidden discreetly behind the simple, modest dress – and I sigh at the loss. Here in Baldr’s hall I can feel him most strongly, pure as he was before death claimed him; he pines for DeLioncourt’s lost beauty and innocence, and for a while I let myself mourn along with him. Sitting myself on the table in front of her, big feet propped up on another chair, dagger idly carving patterns into the wood.
I’m not sure how long I wait for her to regain consciousness, but eventually she does so, coughing and spluttering as her drowned lungs struggle to take in air once more. When she finally falls forward and coughs up the phlegm, it smells bloodied and sick, and I know in that moment that she is dying; slowly rotting herself on the inside in the same way she has been destroyed on the outside. When she is done, she is flooded with the desire for a smoke and so, for that matter, am I. There’s a pack in the glove box of the car. I don’t go and fetch it.
“So,” DeLioncourt finally drawls, “you get off on watching women when they’re dead?”
I just shrug, though her eyes are still downcast and she can’t see me. “Dead is about the only time you look pretty.” Oddly, I think she actually understands what I mean, and she loathes me for saying it.
She does look around then, wincing against the harsh white light of the car. There isn’t a lot for her to see beyond it, just carved wood and glinting weapons, and I can tell from her expression she has no comprehension of where she is.
“Where the fuck is this?”
“Somewhere you’ve never heard of,” I say evenly, which is true. “Somewhere you can’t escape from.” Which is also true.
She does look up at me then, eyes flicking to the dagger in my hand. Surprisingly, while she is still afraid I can feel the beginnings of some kind of plan forming in the back of her mind though I can’t yet catch the specifics.
“So,” she says, “is this the scene where you let me know exactly what a bad little girl I’ve been?” She is grinning nastily, and the level of self-loathing behind the words shakes me somewhat, overpowering me with the desire to find out why she is the way she is.
“The problem with you,” I rely, “is that you’re spoilt. You tag along after Miriah with your little razor, lashing her with shallow cut after shallow cut and laughing when all she can do in response is shoot, over and over again. Miriah’s a nice girl, but she’s also a good girl and she will never, ever be able to deal with someone like you.”
“And I suppose,” DeLioncourt says, leaning slowly back in her chair, legs parting under the thin white fabric of her dress, “that you do?”
I just roll my eyes. “Cut it out. I’ve already told you I’m not going to fuck you, no matter how much you want me to.”
She sneers at that. “What makes you think I would want something like you anywhere near me?”
I just grin. “This,” I say, and move something every so slightly in my own mind. Jötnar are highly sexual creatures, and I’m no exception; it’s an animal sexuality, though, something deeper and older and more instinctive than humans are used to. DeLioncourt actually sits up straight at the onslaught – something utterly intangible, pheromones for the mind – and almost visibly folds in on herself, body torn between the primal desire to reach out to me and her own more rational self hating me for making her want to. DeLioncourt thinks of herself as a master of animal attraction, but like all humans she is a precocious and uncomprehending child compared to my own people.
“Stop it,” she all but whispers, and I do.
“That’s not the real reason, anyway,” I say. “The real reason you want me to fuck you is so you can kill me. Isn’t it? It’s easier when they want to fuck you, when they’re undressing you with their eyes, or with their grimy hands, sliding up your skin.”
“What is this?” she spits. “A bad porno?”
I grin. “I dunno. Do they remind you of your daddy?”
She just chuckles. “Keep trying.”
“Or maybe you only want them too. It’d all be so much easier, wouldn’t it, if daddy didn’t love you. Or should that be love you a little bit too much.”
“You’re sick, ma chère.”
“Hardly, I’m reading your mind.”
She glares at me viciously at that. “How dare you.”
“How dare you try and kill my Valkyrie. How dare you invade my city. How dare you abuse my hospitality after I’d given you the opportunity to leave. Does it bother you I can see what you’re thinking?” I switch tacks with barely a breath in between. “I mean, I know it does, but I just want to hear you say it.”
DeLioncourt glares. I sit placidly, waiting. Eventually she spits, “Yes.”
“Good, you’re a slow learner, but you get there in the end, eh? This is how it’s going to work; I’m going to ask questions, and you’re going to answer them. If you lie, I’ll know.”
“And if I don’t answer?”
“No, I think you’ll find that’s not an option.” My grin is still friendly, playful, but I know my eyes are dead as ice. “Luv, I’m a fair guy. Not so bad, really, when you get to know me. But I don’t like being jerked around. So, who brought you here?”
She seems to weigh up the decision as whether or not to answer. Eventually, she settles on playing along, though I can still feel that funny little inkling of a plan swilling around in the back of her mind. To get to any specifics, however, I would have to be so much more forceful than I currently want to be, so for now I let it slide.
“I don’t know, ma chère,” she says. “It was as much a surprise to me as to you.”
“How long ago was it?”
She shrugs delicately. “A few weeks, going on a month now.” Which is, of course, about the same amount of time I’d spent in her universe.
“Do you like it here?” I ask, which gets me a raised eyebrow.
“It’s different,” she admits. “Very quite; no vampires, no demons. Until I met you I was despairing that there would be anything interesting here.” There’s something underneath that statement, only a slight flicker but I catch it.
I move before she can even finish the sentence; the dagger suddenly no longer in my hand and instead buried nearly up to the hilt in her thigh. DeLioncourt cries out in surprise at the sudden jolt of pain, though she bites down on it quickly. She has to struggle to remove the dagger from flesh and bone and wood.
When it finally rips free with a sickening wet pop, I say. “Who else did you see? Before me?” Still bent double from pain she freezes, mind flicking over a thousand answers. “No, not Miriah or any bullshit. Who. Else. Did. You. See?”
And suddenly, her mind is just totally and utterly blank. It’s just as shocking as if she had vanished right in front of me; not the act itself which is unusual but the fact that she simply can pull it off in the first place. I think, perhaps, someone else has been playing silly buggers with DeLioncourt’s brain. This is confirmed about half a second later when she goes to open her mouth to say something, and simply can’t. It’s mildly amusing to watch her mouth gape awkwardly for a while, her face moving through various shades of distress. Eventually she settles on, “What the…”
“Cat got your tongue?” I ask lazily.
She blinks, obviously distressed. “What did you do to me?”
Which just makes me laugh. “Not me, luv. Looks like someone out there doesn’t want you spilling the beans on them.”
DeLioncourt looks like she’s torn between victory at ‘beating’ me and loathing that her mysterious someones messed her mind up. Eventually, she gives a cock-eyed grin. “So, perhaps the little godling doesn’t always get his way, after all.”
I return it, jumping down off the table. “Au contraire, ma chère. It just makes things a little more interesting.” She doesn’t move when I stalk towards her, doesn’t move when I grab the underside of her head with a big, gawky, claw. Doesn’t move when I pull her roughly up towards me, dangling from the underside of her chin. She does move when my mind touches hers, however.
When I laugh, there’s no humor in it at all. “Oh, ma chère, you needs to spend less time in the morgue and more time reading books.”
DeLioncourt’s eyes are so wide I can see the whites circling them the whole way around, totally fixed on the point of the dagger where it sits harmlessly against my chest, not even nicking the surface despite the obvious pressure she’s throwing against it. The past, as always, was a long time ago, and by and large most things have forgotten their once-promise never to bring harm to Baldr the Beautiful. Most things in most places, but not here; right at the seat of his very power.
I brush aside the dagger easily, and it clatters away as the force DeLioncourt thought to use to push it into my heart – or, I suppose, where my heart would have been, were I human – is suddenly re-directed sideways. Our eyes meet briefly, and I think in that moment she knows she’s in real trouble. That maybe if I was prepared to be lenient before, I won’t be now.
“That’s the problem with you,” I say, closing my fingers around her jaw until I her it crack; no more talking. “Give you an inch and you take a mile.” Something occurs to me, and I add, “Or maybe… maybe you want me to kill you.”
“… please…”
As close as we are – bodies touching and linked with blood and pain – I can now hear her thoughts as well as her feelings, can see more clearly the images as they circle over the upper regions of her mind. Currently they are suicides, hundreds of them, in every conceivable way. A razor to the wrists, the throat, a bullet, a fall, pills, suffocation, gas, food poisoning, AIDs, spider bite, snake bite, car crash after car crash after car crash…
“I think you have to ask yourself,” I say, voice gentle. “Why do you want to die? I doubt it’s just for the challenge.”
“… why why me why waiting…”
“Someone stole your life, did they? Took you and made you a freak through no fault of your own, broke you, unmade you. Left you to drown in the knowledge that – one day soon – they will be back for you? Except, Tara luv, you were broken long before this came into your life.”
I reach in, pushing past her meager objections and going straight for the core; the sick sad heart of DeLioncourt herself. Down past the images of suicides, past the oddly blank spot, past cigarettes and booze and razorblades and Miriah. Past fear and loathing and the whole damn
It’s a bad, run-on sentence punctuated only at the end by a gleaming blade and a blood-soaked little girl.
“You learnt the way early on,” I say, except I’m not, really. “It’s easier when you’re the victim. It takes away choice, takes away responsibility. They made you do it, all of them. Poor abused little Tara, no wonder she turned out like she did. You know what? I don’t buy it, and neither do you.”
There are ghosts in her mind, almost as many as there are in her past. Their screams of pain and rage and impotence echo DeLioncourt’s own; just as vicious, just as selfish. My brother once gave up so much of himself to speak to the dead that when he was done there was almost nothing left. It is no simple or easy thing, and I understand why DeLioncourt runs from it; why she runs from the tarry black threads that bind her soul halfway between this and the next waiting for… something.
I don’t think to try and unpick them – out of spite, mostly; let her suffer – but I do follow their loops and whorls. A mental rollercoaster haunted-house with blood soaked walls and razor-blade seats, and right in the center is…
“… stop it get out please out…”
“How many times have you heard that, I wonder?” Except I don’t really have to as the walls suddenly start echoing with the cries. “How many times has it mattered? How many times has it stayed your blade? Your cruelty?” I can hear Miriah most of all, perhaps because I know her voice but perhaps not. Perhaps she just screams the loudest in this place. “And yet here you are again, a victim.”
Murder after murder flashes past, only this time all the roles are reversed; in every scene it is DeLioncourt herself that ends up under the killer’s blade, under the wicked eyes of her mother or father.
“Are you doing that, or am I?” Another humorless laugh. “It all blends together after a while, doesn’t it?”
And yet, one scene doesn’t change; in one scene, DeLioncourt is still the aggressor.
“Who’s he then? The One That Got Away? There’s always One That Got Away.”
“…Harrison…” And behind the name come a flood of feelings, stupid little trivialities in coffee shops and holding hands and hidden smiles.
“… I don’t want this…”
“Why not? Because it shows you tried once?”
“… and failed…” When push came to shove, when the police came for her, she used him like she would have used any other. Somewhat poetically, she failed, and so Tara DeLioncourt discovered her strange inability to die.
I have to laugh at the almost boring simplicity of it. “Luv, no-one gets it right on the first try. Not you, not me, not anyone. When you’ve dug yourself in so deep the soil gives way to granite and iron and scrabbling harder only makes your fingers bleed it’s so easy to just curl up in comfort and wait to die. Tara, luv, you’re not a useless, inhuman husk because you tried to do something else with your life and failed miserably. You’re a useless, inhuman husk because you failed and gave up. Because you gave into the easy lie that you have no choice, that you are simply a victim of circumstance. Poor abused little Tara, likes causing pain in others, can’t take any herself.”
I drop her then, finally, wrenching myself out of her mind as she falls lifelessly to the floor. The landing is bad, and I hear the cracking and snapping of bones, but she doesn’t move; is still totally lost in the dreams of her murders, playing over and over like a bad Clockwork Orange analogy behind her eyelids, the face of every victim replaced with her own, feeling herself slice and dice away every shred of herself. Ultimately easier than admitting what a vile and worthless piece of trash she has let herself become.
“You know,” I add conversationally, “Miriah is so furious with me right now. She cares about you, though she can’t for the life of her think of why. I do, though. I’ve been there; you make her life hell but at least you’re the devil she knows. Such a huge part of her life that she can’t help but care for you. And you can never be worthy of that, though you sure as hell can try; I’ve been there, too. You know what though, I don’t think you ever will try. Tara DeLioncourt, just another bloody victim of circumstance.” I kick her unceremoniously over – her body about as resistant as a bunch of rags – and she simply lies where she’s fallen, eyes staring glassily at the ceiling, breath coming shallow and fast through parted lips.
“We’ll talk again,” I promise, “see if we can’t fix that little black spot in your mind for you. In the meantime, try not to choke to death on your own Wyrd.”
I leave her there on the floor of Baldr’s glorious hall. When I’m gone, the car headlights snap off and the world is darkness.