Before you start reading this and have a huge "WTF" moment, let me just say now that this is from the point of view of an extremely deranged individual. Any references to "Voices" (capital 'V' or otherwise) should be taken with an open mind. The style of this tries to reflect the vapid mindset of the character the chapter is focusing on, so please make allowances for that as you read. Also, there's a lot of back-story alluded to in this chapter, so don't wet yourself thinking I'm leaving you out in the cold, okay? I'm not QUITE that mean. Anyway, on with the show!
Sing-Song & Swordplay
Chapter 1
Fingers climbed up the neck of the guitar like a spider on a web, wringing notes from the scuffed neck with surprising skill. The girl playing it—a scrawny, dirty thing just about as scuffed and battered as her second-hand guitar—bobbed her head in time to the beat she magicked from thin air.
"If there was something I could do for you," she crooned, making up a silly string of lyrics on the spot, "I would. But just because I can doesn't mean I should."
In response, a passerby dropped a handful of change into the threadbare fedora in front of her.
A voice—a very familiar voice; the Voice—in her head echoed Kill him, but the Voice was weak so she just said "Thanks, mister" and looked up. Her benefactor had disappeared around the corner, however, so all she saw was a flash of coat-tails in the gloom. The streetlight she had set up camp under was weak, flickering like an uncertain decision. "What, no hello?" she said to nobody in particular, and strummed out an angry set of chords. Abruptly, her mood changed from pensive to furious: she snarled and snapped out violently nonsensical words as her fingers all but dug holes into the wood of the guitar neck: "Drinking blood is what I love, bashing heads is flashing red, dripping blood is…" Her mood went back to pensive just as quickly as she picked up her earlier refrain: "If there was something I could do for you I would, but just because I can't doesn't mean I should…"
From there, her singing degraded into tuneless humming as her song drifted off into random chords. "La dee da dee da…" Eventually, her fingers grew loose on the neck, and her strumming hand ceased to move. With blank, fathomless brown eyes the girl—a drifter, a runaway, a major-league schizophrenic with minor-league multiple-personality disorder—stared at the fedora on the sidewalk. A smattering of change obscured the bottom, reminding her of stars.
"Stars," she giggled. "I like stars."
Yes, whispered the Voice, you do.
With a dirty finger she swirled the coins around the bottom of the hat. "Stars in my pocket, my pocket, my pocket," she sang, scooping them into one of the deep pouches on her jacket: an old army fatigue that hung down to her knees. The girl was very, very small, and all of her clothes—the cracked Mary Jane shoes, the baggy cargo shorts, the Sublime t-shirt and the huge jacket—hung loose on her frame like clothes on a broom-handle scarecrow.
With detached annoyance she realized that her bum was sore from so much sitting: she had been parked under the lamp post for more than half the day. Rising, she pulled the fedora—also several sizes too large—over her greasy, lank, and not-quite-brown hair, slipped the guitar's strap over her shoulder so the instrument lay across her back, and stumbled with purpose down the sidewalk to no particular place at all.
She went back to the warehouse without meaning to, just like always, and curled up on a pile of rage in the darkest corner, which was just as typical for her. The rafters overhead were hung with cobwebs and old rope, and every now and then a rat would skitter through the eaves with a rustle and a shower of dust.
She was scared of the dark, but not because of the rats. It was the voices that scared her.
They weren't like the ones in her head that told her to play music, or to find shelter when it rained. No, those voices stayed inside, and were usually helpful, with the rare exception of the One—with a capital O, or whatever letter it was that started the word 'One;' she couldn't remember ever learning to read—the One from earlier that urged her to sink her teeth into a random throat or kill someone every now and then. But that Voice had been weak for a long time, and rarely got her to comply with its bloodthirsty.
Not anymore, at least.
Suddenly, she tensed on her mound of rags as something moved in the darkness of the warehouse. Hoping it was a rat—anything but the Other voices; she hated, feared, loathed the Others—she tried to fall asleep, but the Voice—
You know what it is, said the Voice, and you know what you have to do about it.
"No," the girl whimpered, clutching her thin body tight in her own arms. "No, no, no, no, no…"
Yes, said the Voice. Use me. Use me or die. Use me now. Now!
With shaking fingers, she pressed her ears closed against the Voice, but it took her a moment to remember that the Voice was inside, and couldn't be shut out that way. Taking her fingers from her ears, the girl tensed, listened, and—was met with silence.
There were no Others in the warehouse.
Which is what made is so much more terrifying when a collection of red lights—pinpoints of scarlet luminosity—flared in the darkness, and a voice—a small 'v' this time—peeled out of the shadows like a reluctant apple skin.
"We found you," an Other whispered gleefully. "We found you, we found you, we found—"
"Nooo!" the girl wailed.
USE ME! thundered the Voice, and, abruptly, the Voice was strong enough to take control. Its earlier weakness, the girl knew, had been an act.
It was an odd sensation, being controlled—well, not controlled, really, for the girl had control; it was more like being compelled—by the Voice. It had happened to the girl a few times before, yet it never ceased to be scary, uncomfortable—yet exciting. Every nerve ending came alive; every movement became poetry; every sight and sound and scent became full and clean and clear. The scent of motor oil and her own body odor assailed her, as did the scent of the Others: brimstone, acid, fire, smoke. The dark did little to cloud her vision, and for the first time that night she could see the Others: they stood slouched, clutching scythes in skeletal hands, covered by smoky cloaks. Every creak of sandy joint was a symphony; every crunch of foot on cracked cement a cacophony of sound. As soon as the Voice broke through, the girl wondered why she had ever resisted in the first place.
"WELL?!" roared the Voice through the girl's willing mouth. "IF YOU WANT ME, COME AND GET ME!"
The Others immediately leapt towards her, but were not quick enough. The girl, empowered by the Voice, was behind them in an instant. Taking up a length of discarded lead pipe someone had carelessly strewn on the warehouse floor, she improvised a cudgel she used to strike the head off of the nearest Other.
"DIE, LEGION DEMON!" the Voice screamed as she pulverized limbs, heads, and joints. "DIE, MY LOW-CASTE KIN!" One of them—a fleshy demon who looked to be made of blood and glowing energy—attempted to slice into her from behind, but she spun and, impossibly, cut it in half with the blunt pipe. In a howl of agony the thing went down, spraying the girl with ichor and meaty matter.
A deranged, lustful, hungry grin creased the girl's face.
"Run," the Other voices cried as they began to melt into the shadows. Soon enough, they had disappeared.
All except the bloody demon, that is, who laid twitching and moaning on the floor.
The girl walked over to it, and the thing's beady eyes darted to the exits in panic. With futile fervency it attempted to pull its severed torso to a shadow, leaving its writhing legs behind.
The girl outpaced it with a mere human walk.
"HELLO, ABYSS," said the Voice. Even when it was amused, the Voice seemed to thunder. "YET ANOTHER UNSUCESSFUL COUP. HOW BORING." She yawned. "BUT I'LL ADMIT YOU HAVE TIRED MY HOST WITH ALL THIS ACTIVITY. SHE'S NOT USED TO SUCH… SPORT."
A low chuckle escaped her throat.
"I DON'T SEE WHY YOU BOTHER HER—US—LIKE THIS. YOU'LL NEVER GET ME BACK UNLESS YOUR MASTER COMES FOR ME HIMSELF. BUT HE CAN'T DO THAT, NOW CAN HE? I'VE SEALED HIS POWER AWAY WHERE NO ONE WILL EVER FIND IT." The chuckle turned into a laugh. Squatting on her heels, she threw back her head and roared with mirth. When she quieted, her eyes glittered not dull brown, but deep and lightless black. "I WON'T KILL YOU, ABYSS, BUT I WILL MAKE A LESSON OUT OF YOU. WHEN I SEND YOU HOME, TELL YOUR MASTER THAT I WILL NOT TOLERATE MY HOST BEING BOTHERED ANY LONGER, OR I'LL DO MORE THAN SEAL HIS POWERS." She licked her lips. "I'LL KILL HIM, AND EAT HIS LIFE. SPEAKING OF WHICH, I'M HUNGRY." Bending her thin lips to the demon's throat, she whispered in a voice that screamed:
"REMEMBER MY MESSAGE, ABYSS, EVEN THROUGH THE PAIN."
She ate her dinner, then, and sent the scraps back to their rightful owner.
AFTERWORD
So that was kind of disturbing. Wow. I'm as deranged as the nameless girl.
So, the next chapter... do you think this is worth continuing? I came up with it on a whim earlier today during my morning work out/warm up, and like it fairly well, so... yeah. Let me know your thoughts (if any).
A thing to note: chapters from Dante's or someone other than the girl's (it is SO annoying calling her that, but I haven't picked a name yet) will be less... er... weird. Woot!
I suppose a disclaimer is in order: I DON'T OWN DEVIL MAY CRY OR ABYSS DEMONS. The Voice is mine, as is the Girl (gah, names!). Back, lawyers, back! (cracks a whip lion-tamer style)