Post by EmperorMyric on Dec 16, 2017 18:51:24 GMT
The lady came out of the dark with a peculiar look of determination in her eyes. Those were the first thing I remembered, her eyes. They had a bit of a burning look to them, but not in the sulfur and brimstone variety that most people with burning eyes tend to. If anything, it was like natural gas; a sort of blue to them that seemed too cold yet too bright. That’s not to say they were blue of course, but they might have been.
She walked into my office out of the dark with a very brisk pace, and she closed the door forcefully while still slowing it at the last moment so it didn’t slam; she locked the thing up quickly, before spinning about and facing me. She had a wide cluster of dark freckles on her face, though after a short while I came to realize that wasn’t entirely true. They weren’t freckles.
“Mister Chandler, I am a client of yours.” the lady with the cold burning eyes murmured softly as she helped herself to a seat opposite my desk. She had a very fragile, delicate sounding voice, one I doubted very much; I’d never seen her before in my life, and I leaned forward in my seat and placed my hands on the desk as I snuffed out my cigarette. The wicks from its ashes rose up in thin tendrils into the room, and I shake my head. She looks tired, with a sort of hollowness around the eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I lie without knowing it, “I can’t say I recall our meeting…” I begin, before a strange sense of déjà vu falls over me. The lady with the cold burning eyes tries to smile at me, but it’s a lie too; only I think she knows it. “Are you quite positive Mister Chandler? I believe we have met at least once prior to now...” she explains apologetically, as she looks past me out the window. She’s…she’s not wearing the clothing I last saw her in. That stunning green dress. How could I forget that? It left a lot to the imagination, yes, but any man could imagine it without too much difficulty.
“I beg your pardon, miss…” I begin, clutching at fragments of a dream, “…the encounter slipped my mind.” She laughs softly in a unsettlingly controlled way, and it sounds like bells ringing. “I assure you Mister Chandler, you wouldn’t be the first. I tend to be rather forgettable, I’m afraid.” The lady with the cold burning eyes replies. She slides the pack off her back, eventually fishing out of it a small bag and dropping it demurely on the desk as if it were bad fruit. “I believe you’ve completed your end of the arrangement?” I was desperately trying to remember her name, but it just wasn’t coming to me; I opened a drawer and removed a file, making a show of perusing through it as I skimmed past photographs and transcripts.
“It’s all here,” I say, as I realize one of the freckles is beginning to run down her cheek. She reaches out with a hand that, like her face, was not really covered in freckles, and gently removes the file from my grasp. “I have one last job for you, Mister Chandler, if you feel inclined for it.” She says politely as she peruses my months of investigation with a chillingly distant gaze. “You will of course be well paid, as always.” She pauses abruptly and glances back at the window with a skittish look on her face like a cat that just heard the sounds of chains in the doghouse. “Fetch a pen, Mister Chandler. You’re going to want to write this down.”
I wrote down her instructions, pausing only for a moment after she spoke. It was entirely legal, after all, but not normally something one asks another to do. I looked up at her as she moved towards the door, contemplating asking her if she needed help; but then there were those freckles that weren’t freckles all over her skin, and her clothes, and I realized it wasn’t a question worth asking. I never saw her again. At least, I don’t think I did.
--oOo—
Mister Chandler forgot the whole encounter within minutes of my leaving his office. That’s always the case, anyway. I am rather forgettable, after all. But he wrote down my instruction, however brief and nondescript they were, and I slipped into the night to return to the business of survival.
I am not a soldier. I never was one. But this hunt has taught me how to kill, and I am learning quickly. Echo didn’t want to kill me; he wanted to burn me out and leave me hollow. But treating the shadowmen as disposable assets was a mistake, in that as they were not trying to kill me, I was still trying to kill them, and I had much, much practice at my craft.
I had discovered, much to my horror, that they were tracking me via that part of Naga’s mind that I had absconded with; on one of the disturbingly many times I had killed Echo’s jester, I ran off with the necklace he’d been wearing, thinking that perhaps it was what kept him coming back after me. It was not until the day after that I realized I could hear it whispering, and then the revelation struck me. I admit I panicked, for a moment, a brief one at that, but still a moment. That was how they were following me. I could go anywhere, and they’d be there by nightfall. But there were advantages to this too, I quickly reminded myself. If they could track Naga’s mind through these necklaces, perhaps I could track those who wore them. Shaw had a part of Naga in him, too, so there was always an opportunity to the thing. First though, I had to shake them from my trail. That would be an ordeal in and of itself.
But opportunities, as they always do with a little coaxing, presented themselves in time.
She walked into my office out of the dark with a very brisk pace, and she closed the door forcefully while still slowing it at the last moment so it didn’t slam; she locked the thing up quickly, before spinning about and facing me. She had a wide cluster of dark freckles on her face, though after a short while I came to realize that wasn’t entirely true. They weren’t freckles.
“Mister Chandler, I am a client of yours.” the lady with the cold burning eyes murmured softly as she helped herself to a seat opposite my desk. She had a very fragile, delicate sounding voice, one I doubted very much; I’d never seen her before in my life, and I leaned forward in my seat and placed my hands on the desk as I snuffed out my cigarette. The wicks from its ashes rose up in thin tendrils into the room, and I shake my head. She looks tired, with a sort of hollowness around the eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I lie without knowing it, “I can’t say I recall our meeting…” I begin, before a strange sense of déjà vu falls over me. The lady with the cold burning eyes tries to smile at me, but it’s a lie too; only I think she knows it. “Are you quite positive Mister Chandler? I believe we have met at least once prior to now...” she explains apologetically, as she looks past me out the window. She’s…she’s not wearing the clothing I last saw her in. That stunning green dress. How could I forget that? It left a lot to the imagination, yes, but any man could imagine it without too much difficulty.
“I beg your pardon, miss…” I begin, clutching at fragments of a dream, “…the encounter slipped my mind.” She laughs softly in a unsettlingly controlled way, and it sounds like bells ringing. “I assure you Mister Chandler, you wouldn’t be the first. I tend to be rather forgettable, I’m afraid.” The lady with the cold burning eyes replies. She slides the pack off her back, eventually fishing out of it a small bag and dropping it demurely on the desk as if it were bad fruit. “I believe you’ve completed your end of the arrangement?” I was desperately trying to remember her name, but it just wasn’t coming to me; I opened a drawer and removed a file, making a show of perusing through it as I skimmed past photographs and transcripts.
“It’s all here,” I say, as I realize one of the freckles is beginning to run down her cheek. She reaches out with a hand that, like her face, was not really covered in freckles, and gently removes the file from my grasp. “I have one last job for you, Mister Chandler, if you feel inclined for it.” She says politely as she peruses my months of investigation with a chillingly distant gaze. “You will of course be well paid, as always.” She pauses abruptly and glances back at the window with a skittish look on her face like a cat that just heard the sounds of chains in the doghouse. “Fetch a pen, Mister Chandler. You’re going to want to write this down.”
I wrote down her instructions, pausing only for a moment after she spoke. It was entirely legal, after all, but not normally something one asks another to do. I looked up at her as she moved towards the door, contemplating asking her if she needed help; but then there were those freckles that weren’t freckles all over her skin, and her clothes, and I realized it wasn’t a question worth asking. I never saw her again. At least, I don’t think I did.
--oOo—
Mister Chandler forgot the whole encounter within minutes of my leaving his office. That’s always the case, anyway. I am rather forgettable, after all. But he wrote down my instruction, however brief and nondescript they were, and I slipped into the night to return to the business of survival.
I am not a soldier. I never was one. But this hunt has taught me how to kill, and I am learning quickly. Echo didn’t want to kill me; he wanted to burn me out and leave me hollow. But treating the shadowmen as disposable assets was a mistake, in that as they were not trying to kill me, I was still trying to kill them, and I had much, much practice at my craft.
I had discovered, much to my horror, that they were tracking me via that part of Naga’s mind that I had absconded with; on one of the disturbingly many times I had killed Echo’s jester, I ran off with the necklace he’d been wearing, thinking that perhaps it was what kept him coming back after me. It was not until the day after that I realized I could hear it whispering, and then the revelation struck me. I admit I panicked, for a moment, a brief one at that, but still a moment. That was how they were following me. I could go anywhere, and they’d be there by nightfall. But there were advantages to this too, I quickly reminded myself. If they could track Naga’s mind through these necklaces, perhaps I could track those who wore them. Shaw had a part of Naga in him, too, so there was always an opportunity to the thing. First though, I had to shake them from my trail. That would be an ordeal in and of itself.
But opportunities, as they always do with a little coaxing, presented themselves in time.