Author's Note/Introduction: It's worth noting that I would never have taken the time to write this story if Ripper Street hadn't been renewed for a third series, such would have been my despair. So if you like it, don't thank me, thank the folks at Amazon Prime, et al. Secondly, whether you like it or not, please don't tell any of my colleagues that I wrote it because my attentions are supposed to be dedicated to a couple of professional-type articles at the moment – articles that my muse refused to finish until this piece got out of the way. (She's kind of pushy sometimes.)
No clue how long this will be in the end – we're following the Alice in Wonderland theory of writing here (e.g. "begin at the beginning and when you get to the end, stop"). Spoilers for all episodes are rampant, so govern yourselves accordingly. And finally, I don't own these characters, don't want to own them, and will put them back right where I found them when I'm done. I promise.
They came together in the desert.
It was after the skirmish at El Teb, the waking nightmare that transformed not only his daily habits, but quickly claimed each and every moment of what were supposed to be his resting hours as well. Each time he closed his eyes, the wails of the enemy filled his ears, images of severed limbs and flashing blades appeared in his mind's eye, and the cold fingers of fear squeezed his heart once more. Instead of screaming in the dunes as he had been when Colonel Faulkner and the rest of the regiment found him, however, he began to keep the whole encampment awake with his wailing and even broke the hand of a corporal who dared reach out to him in the throes of his terror.
Words could never explain it to his fellow fighters - what he saw, tasted, and felt in those moments when he closed his eyes in the desperate hope he could surrender to sleep and discovered naught but blood around him instead. The horrors lived in that disconnected place between sleep and awake, a place where rivulets of blood pooled in the coarse sand and its spray lay metallic on his tongue.
Even if he could have talked about what he saw, enough comrades had witnessed the rendered results of his single-handed attack on the Egyptian dervishes to believe that he was already madder than a London hatter. And after the incident with the unlucky corporal, it would take the heat of battle to bring them close to him in no less than a pathetic and desperate hope that his killing abilities could help them survive the day.
But Her Majesty's service would not send Sergeant Bennet Drake into battle again. She instead would send him home - to what, he knew not. The Crown had used him up as she'd seen fit - his strength and youth - and now that he was reduced to a haunted shell of a man, she would toss him aside to make room for a fresh replacement.
Yet what good would he be in England now? What good was the monstrous form the boiling Egyptian sun had forged him into? Wasn't the Crown worried about the evil he could bring to bear at home? Would he harm himself - or worse, harm others?
But clearly the answers to those questions were no longer Her Majesty's concern. The curse was Bennet's and Bennet's alone to bear.
Yes, in true blue bureaucratic fashion, the British Army had introduced evil into his life under the guise of saving him from starvation on a London street and there were no scissors big enough to split the red tape that now bound the situation. And so, in the depths of his deepest despair, he sought an alternative.
Trustworthy natives helped him find his way to the black canyon the Egyptians spoke of in hushed tones. It was there, the locals believed, that a holy man lived - quite possibly one of the last of his kind - and it was said that he could do things that no other man could, that he communed with the same ancient gods who had spoken to the pharaohs. Some believed him to be immortal and others reported that he was at least three hundred years old.
Mortal, immortal, or otherworldly - he was Bennet's last hope.
Dehydration and hallucination nearly claimed him before he reached the tiny tent in the dark depth of the canyon - though he later wondered if perhaps he had simply passed out on the way and the holy man was the one, in fact, who found him - especially after all that came to pass. Someone or something brought Bennet Drake to the canyon and the course of his entire life changed after, the fact of which offered strong indication that there were one or more higher powers at work.
Later, Bennet would only recall all that happened bits and pieces, though what things he did remember were clear and sharp, etched into his memory with the permanence of the tattoo on his right arm. But unlike the tattoo etched with stark precision into his fair English skin, the memories were shrouded in a haze of confusion and interlaced with snippets of things he later thought might have only occurred in his imagination.
Wordlessly, the holy man gave him water laced with some kind of herb that lulled Bennet toward sleep. Ever the soldier, the sergeant battled with everything he had to stay awake as his tongue tasted blood that may have sprung from his recurring nightmare or might very well have been his own. Sleep he feared more than death and Bennet would have given in to his own demise more easily.
"You must sleep," the holy man intoned, his voice low. "She cannot find you if you are awake."
Bennet tried to find his voice to protest and to ask who "she" was, but the herbs proved too strong and his weakened body ultimately succumbed.
At the moment of release, he saw her.
Later, he wasn't sure if her appearance coincided with the holy man taking out his ink and needles to inject her lithe form into his sunburned forearm or if she really did appear before him in the dim light of the tent, but he recognized her instantly as a friend, for her mere presence banished all traces of fear from his heart. She stood before him, a striking figure in blood red robes with the regal head of a lion. She took him by the hand and he felt a cool breeze sweep over his feverish brow, quelling the cacophony of anger in his heart as it began to pump in a quiet and relaxed rhythm for the first time in what seemed like ages.
The holy man's voice sounded as though it spanned the width of the canyon to reach Bennet's ear as he heard him say, "She is Sekmet. She is 'The One Before Whom Evil Trembles.'"
The lion-goddess slowly blinked long lashes over her eyes in acknowledgment of her name, but when she raised her gaze to meet Bennet's, he was shocked to realize that they were not the deep brown he expected them to be.
They were instead a piercing blue.
The goddess reached a gentle hand toward his heart and Bennet felt it flower into full bloom in that moment. An open heart was a detriment to a soldier - a handicap to be overcome if one was to succeed in battle - and Bennet's was as closed off as they came until the moment that Sekmet's outstretched hand came to rest on his chest. The first thudding beat shook his body to its core and he felt himself gasp as if he had just surfaced after diving into deepest water. If this was what it was like to feel emotion again after ignoring it for so long, he wasn't sure he could cope with the sensation. It was too much, too overwhelming, but as he began to form the question for the blue-eyed goddess, everything suddenly went black and sleep claimed him once and for all.
It was nearly a full day later when he awoke, his right arm smarting from the presence of his new tattoo but his mind clearer than it had been since before his arrival in Africa. His heart thumped comfortably in his chest in a way he hadn't experienced in a very long time and he realized that he actually felt young again. What's more, he felt more fully himself than before. The goddess had brought him back to life, had returned what the Crown and the dervishes in the desert had taken away.
The old man was seated nearby when Bennet sat up and rubbed his eyes.
"She came to you," the holy man observed with no emotion in his voice. "She believes you are a warrior worth saving. You will save many others in return."
"She's asking a lot," was all Bennet could manage, his throat scratchy and voice ragged.
"She travels with you now," the holy man told him, gesturing to the tattoo as Bennet drank deeply from the water skein he offered. "She will guide you through battle safely if you allow her to - and when the battle is over, she will watch over you so that you may sleep in peace. I have prayed for this and made offerings to make it so."
"I hope you're right," Bennet said in earnest. He rose shakily and the holy man stepped forward to assist.
"Trust in her," the man said and he placed his hand over Bennet's heart in the exact place the goddess had. "Trust in her."
"I thank you," Bennet told him sincerely, clasping the man's hand in both of his own. "I'm not a man of many words, but I thank you very much for this."
It was at the opening to the tent that Bennet thought to ask a final question, one that still nagged at the corner of his mind: "The goddess - is she supposed to have blue eyes?"
The holy man's own brown eyes widened in surprise and disbelief and he clutched Bennet's forearm, the one that now sported the goddess' form tattooed on it, causing the young soldier to inhale sharply at the sting. "What did you say?"
Bennet repeated himself: "When I saw the goddess in my dream, she had blue eyes." He paused for a moment to take in the holy man's reaction. "Does that mean something?"
The holy man's gaze raked Bennet Drake and appraised him from head to toe, his expression indicating that conflicting thoughts ran through his mind. But when he spoke, he said simply, "Only the goddess can reveal her secrets to you."
And under the most unexpected of circumstances, she did.
TBC