Where Angels Fear
Author's note: Since Dark Knight hasn't come out yet, (not to mention the havoc I'm going to wreak upon certain characters…) it's more than safe to consider this story as very much AU. This is my first attempt at a fanfic I actually intend to finish, so please be gentle. It sprung out of an odd, what-if moment I had when musing on above alluded-to certain characters, so we'll see how and where it goes.
Prologue
There was something eerie about the world when it was covered in snow. A landscape overtaken by that frozen layer of white was beautiful, but cold and alien at the same time; like the surface of some distant moon. A large part of that disquieting sensation of…otherness, comes from the silence. For as the blanket of snow stretches out its icy arms and cloaks the world, it almost seems like it's swallowed everything; the earth, the last struggling remnants of life and color, and most of all, sound itself. Stand in a snow-covered wood in the middle of the night and you'll feel perhaps the most alone that you'll ever feel, the creeping shadows sucking away what little remains of the familiar that the snow hasn't already taken from you.
It was that oppressive sense of winter-born silence that she was most aware of, an unnerving emotion spilling through her that danced that razor-thin line between dark anticipation and nameless dread. But even amid that seeming vacuum of sound, holding itself in like the breath of some great, unseen beast, came the faint, almost mocking echoes of ghostly sobbing. It drifted down the hallway at her back as if daring her to turn around and look behind her, even as that same corridor stretched on an impossible distance ahead before it finally formed a doorway that both beckoned and repelled.
She looked down, seeing a pair of small, bare feet peeking out from under the lacy bottom hem of a white nightgown, and a flicker of lucidity made itself known; a flash of insight that there was something terribly wrong about this, and that she should stop immediately, turn around and leave while she still could. But, just as quickly as that inkling of comprehension dawned, it had vanished once more, and she lifted her gaze from those little naked feet and was once again being drawn closer and closer to that taunting doorway.
Then, time and space seemed to link hands and leap forward, for she suddenly was not only upon that distant portal, she had somehow crossed it…and she found herself standing rigidly in a dim room lit only by a hissing fire that sent defiant glints of light here and there throughout the chamber even as it caressed the jagged edges of broken glass on the floor. But those things barely registered in her dazed, almost entranced recognition. Rather, looming almost impossibly large in her direct field of vision was a heavy, black leather chair, facing away from her in front of the fireplace.
There was something wrong about that too, she realized, feeling the sharp, brittle crackle of glass crumbling underfoot as she forced herself to move closer still to the chair and its occupant…the sight of whom was almost completely obscured by the high padded back of the chair, save for an innocuous-looking shock of brown hair. Unbidden, she reached out with a hand that was as small as the pair of feet had been, the thin fingers trembling as she strove to grip the back of the chair. Her skin had only grazed the leather in a barely-there touch when a sharp creak was suddenly heard, the chair spinning abruptly around to face her.
Someone was screaming, and that someone was her, an almost animal sense of panic clawing at her as she fell to the floor and scrambled backwards; her back striking the wall in her failed attempt to get away from the thing in the leather chair, the wet leather chair. But as much as she wanted to close her eyes to shut the sight out, she found she couldn't, and stared helplessly with equal parts terror and revulsion as the firelight played over every sickening detail of the macabre spectacle that had been revealed to her horrified gaze.
A corpse, upright at first but now slumped forward slightly at the chair's motion, sat there; features made unrecognizable by the garish lacerations that criss-crossed what little skin remained beneath the hollow, red-filled liquid pools of the otherwise empty eye sockets. The rest of the body was as hideously mutilated as the head, blood still seeping from open slices in the flesh and staining the last bits of the once-brown leather black with ribbons of crimson fluid and spots of darker, thicker things.
The stench of exposed viscera and rotted meat hit her nose at the same time the light caught the eerily untouched metal of the crucifix around the cadaver's neck, bile rising in her throat even as she whimpered; shrinking back against the wall as if trying to leave the chamber of horrors by sheer willpower alone.
Sudden wetness beneath her fingers broke her stare and forced her to look down, another scream building in her lungs when she saw a pool of blood rising under and then spreading around her. She tried to crawl away from the rapidly-expanding tide, skin and nightgown becoming drenched and stained as black as the gruesome chair even as the corpse lurched awkwardly to its feet; dark fluid spilling from its ragged mouth before a gore-covered, half-skeletal hand extended blindly before it, reaching for her.
She did' scream at that, the blood pool deepening and sucking her down into its scarlet, drowning depths before utter blackness swallowed her world, only to be replaced by agony.
Pain, as hot as the blood had been red, sliced through her entire body in relentless waves; a cold, heavy pressure at wrist and ankle holding her immobile as the torture continued unabated, and then began to intensify. The pain riding her shuddering form was like nothing she had ever experienced before, so intense that it went beyond the need for tears or even screams; only that rare, terrible inner weeping plea that death would come soon to bring an end to such suffering.
The sensation was of living fire and acid-coated blades searing through every vein and nerve in her body, as if something within was trying to tear her apart from the inside out. The sound of chanting, as muffled and distant as the sobs in the hallway had been, sank through her pain-wracked awareness then, the words alien and indistinct as she struggled to both hear as well as somehow comprehend them. But her mental efforts were brought to a jolting halt as the tension that had been underlying the pain suddenly found its breaking point; a final scream freeing itself from her raw throat as she felt her flesh explode outward in a burst of blood and fresh pain…
The room was dark and utterly still when she bolted upright in bed, heartbeat fluttering like the wings of a trapped butterfly even as she slowly realized that the wetness against her bare skin that had been blood in the dream was in reality beads of cold sweat. On instinct she stretched out her limbs as if reassuring herself that she still had freedom of movement, bracing her hands against the thick blanket covering her body even as she deliberately slowed and deepened her breathing.
When she felt she had finally calmed down enough to be confident of her footing, she pushed the covers aside and swung her legs over the side of the bed, her fingers searching for and then lifting a robe up off the floor once she had found it. Pulling it around herself and making quick work of the ties, she cautiously picked her way out of the bedroom in favor of the living room at the other end of a blessedly short hall.
Reaching the half-illuminated outline of a large window, she caught the thin plastic rod and twisted it until the blinds tilted open, harsh electric light flooding the previously dark sanctuary of her apartment at the same time it revealed a cityscape of glittering lights outside; tall, forbidding-looking buildings providing a modern mockery of sorts to the towers and castles of old, the heavy newborn coating of December snow already tinged here and there with the mute grime of industrial pollution.
Sighing at the sight, she turned away from the view and headed instead into the kitchen, stopping ultimately in front of the sink. A hand that still trembled faintly from the aftershocks of the nightmare sought and then wrapped around a dark brown bottle; fingers sliding open the cap and drawing a pair of small, round pills into her palm. Pouring a glass of water, she made a face at the slightly bitter, metallic taste but used it to swallow the medicine anyway, putting the now-empty pill bottle back down on the counter before returning reluctantly to her bedroom.
She'd have to get that prescription re-filled, somehow, she admitted silently to herself, pulling back the blankets and then sliding under them a moment later. She didn't like taking artificial chemicals into her body…but at least when she took the pills, she no longer dreamed.