DCUNU (Urban Nordica)
Untitled
I sneak out just as the first tinges of dawn start to caress the sky. Miriah notices, of course, but she makes a good job of not showing it; still engrossed with tippy-tapping away at the obnoxiously over-zealous computer like she has been for the past three hours. She doesn’t stop me; whatever battles she’s choosing to pick nowadays, this apparently isn’t one of them and, besides, she knows I’ll return. Where else do I have to go, right?
I’m somewhat annoyed to remember I don’t have a car anymore, which means I’m left to make my way back into town on my own; ragged, ghostly wings pale against the receding moonlight and as if that isn’t hugely ironic. I hate flying, but it’s quick and it’s discreet and I haven’t quite yet figured out how to make this body shift into something less… threatening. I tried it once — about an hour ago now — but the results were… unsettling, even to me, and not exactly something I could work with. I’m going to have to do something about that, but I’m going to need some time to work out what, and I don’t have that right now. Right now, I need to pay fealty.
Here’s the deal; gods are territorial. Very territorial, and maybe Miriah’s content to just watch right now, but I know — sooner or later — that if I don’t pay some respects I’m going to run into trouble later on. Hell, I still might. But at least I will have tried.
I find what I’m looking for in a cold, dark park that squats in the forgotten space between three crumbling tenements deep in the Narrows. It’s colder here than even the rest of the city; the fog curling around my feet as I land, the light drizzle of rain making leathery, pattering sounds against my wings until I fold them back up into nothingness. I have an audience. A big one; a thousand beady little eyes glitter at me from every crack and corner as the vermin gather in the fog. Back in the safety of the Really Real World we call it the Bat-God, because that’s the cliché, but standing here — in the dark part of Gotham City in the sickly, pre-dawn light — it’s no more than than I am a god of fire. It’s in everything — every rat, every leering gargoyle, every scuttling cockroach — and it’s dark and it’s old and it occurs to me, standing there, that it is neither good nor benevolent and maybe it’s not even capable of understanding the difference. There is madness in this city — I’ve seen it in my own fractured mind as clearly as I’ve seen it in Miriah’s new steel-edged gaze — and the idea is far less trite from the inside than it is on paper.
The bat-god is here, but then again it’s in Miriah, too, and it’s not what I’ve come to see. I’ve come for her. And she’s waiting for me.
She’s a woman, of course; thin and frail and sharp like broken glass. Too-pale skin hidden underneath a tattered 19th century promenade dress — white silk long since torn and stained with blood and filth — and almost indistinguishable from the fog that swirls around her. She could be a socialite, an actress, a bride, a whore…
I say, “You know why I’m here.” And it’s not a question.
Gotham City just regards me cooly, lifting one delicate, pale brow. She doesn’t speak, but somehow I didn’t think she would. Her eyes are black like the night sky. Like the pit underneath a man-hole cover.
“Because, hell, I don’t know why I’m here. But I’d rather not be.” This is always so much easier when you’re not on this end of the conversation. I try something different, “Look, I don’t want to stomp on your city. It’s your city. I just want to go home.” That sounds reasonable, right?
She nods, smiling slightly, holds out one elegantly gloved hand. I smirk in return, down on one knee — my legs really aren’t made for this — and kiss the filth-smeared silk.
Okay, that’s the easy part. I really, really hope this doesn’t all end in violence. “But I’m taking Miriah, too,” I add, rising from my kneel. “She doesn’t belong to you; I won’t let you destroy her.” I try not to think about those bitterly cold eyes and pain-thinned lips.
I’m not sure what I was expecting, and I think I’m so prepared for some kind of retaliation that I don’t notice the susurration until it’s well underway. Even then, it takes me a while to process what it is — the rustling sound of a hundred rats, a score of bats, a thousand cockroaches — and as crazy as it sounds, I’m pretty damn sure that the bat-god is laughing at me.
Suddenly, I think maybe coming here wasn’t such a good idea.
Gotham looks, if anything, more amused than before. When she speaks, it sounds like a gunshot. Like the wind between buildings. Like the crash of a body in the river. “Of course,” she says. “Destroying her is your job.”
And then, like the wind, she’s gone.
Miriah doesn’t even look up when I reappear. “Found what you were looking for?” The tone is light but the voice still makes me flinch; for a moment she almost sounds like Nekro, and that really isn’t right.
“Do you ever get the feeling,” I ask in return, “that there’s some kind of giant cosmic joke going on, and everyone is in on it except for you?”
She does look up then, scowling that too-grim scowl. She doesn’t say anything, but…
“Yeah. I don’t like it either.”