Chapter One
Only a Dream
Blood spilled onto the snow, black clouds in the sky- a blood-curdling, inhuman shriek pierced through the night. The sound had more in common with a derailed freight train than anything animalistic, yet it arose in bouts of steam from the gaping maw of a huge, onyx dog, and slipped through rows upon rows of razor teeth. With a growl, the best snapped shut its jaws around a human male and began shaking him back and forth, up and down, like a pet with a rope toy. More blood spattered the scene and before long, the beast had dropped the man into the thick powder lacing the ground.
A misty light billowed from the man's torn chest and with a great breath; the black beast sucked it up in a needy hunger. There were now three human males slain on the ground, blood spattered and pooled in the snow in thick, scarlet puddles that marred the purity of the white flakes fallen from the sky. Seemingly satisfied in the feat of killing its attackers and attempted slayers, the beast licked itself clean and turned away from the horrid scene, disappearing into the shadows provided by the outline of trees.
A woman suddenly sat up in her bed, her chest heaving with the struggle of drawing air into her lungs. After several moments of just sitting there, trying to determine what in the actual hell had just happened, she scrubbed her shaking hands over her face and shook her head as if to clear it. Of course, it was only a dream; there was nothing for the woman with onyx hair to fear. She needn't fear… herself.
The thought interrupting her thought process was upsetting, to say the least. The woman knew that, as she rose from her bed and padded into the bathroom to gaze into the mirror, these nightmares had to stop. She looked at her tired eyes, noted that the once vibrant, watery blue irises were faded more to a dull grey, and sighed forlornly. Quite frankly, she looked like utter shit.
With the bitter thought in her mind, she turned on the sink and used the water that streamed from the faucet to rinse her face. Gasping at the obnoxious cold that contrasted vastly the heated, sweaty skin of her face, the woman quickly turned off the faucet and grabbed a plush towel to press against her skin. She shook her head and turned out the light, walking back out into her adjoined bedroom.
Sitting down on the edge of the bed, she glared somewhat balefully at the clock that showed the time of 4:50 in the morning. With a groan, she fell back onto her bed and covered her face with her hands. Damnit, she'd only gotten a few hours of sleep again. Still, her habits were ever-so slowly improving and it was more shut-eye than she'd had for quite a while, recently.
After a while of moping, the woman sighed and picked herself up with a stretch, running her slender fingers through her long, onyx locks as she sauntered into the kitchen. The tile was cold against her bare feet, so she made a strange face at first, but after a few moments she got over it and flicked on the light over the sink, heading over to the refrigerator.
Scanning the contents of the nearly empty device, she let out a tired, frustrated sigh as she realised that she really needed to attempt to go and buy groceries at some point. She settled for a bottle of water, for now, and ambled over to the counter on which her telephone lay. She looked at the blinking light for a moment before she sighed and clicked the playback button, sending the machine into its typical spiel.
"You've reached Josy Black. I'm either not here right now, or ignoring you. Leave a message." The sound of her own voice made Josy roll her eyes, and she cracked open the bottle of water as she listened to the message that had been left for her by a male voice.
"Listen, Josy. I know being a loner is your whole thing and all, but would it really kill you to pick up the phone at least once when I call?" A sigh was heard after a brief pause. "Look, I'm just worried about you. You stopped showing up to work, I haven't heard from you in days… Just… Call me, okay?" With that, the message ended.
Josy frowned at the telephone and clicked the 'delete all messages' button, turning away with a careless shrug as she took a swig from the plastic bottle, reflecting on the coworker that had left her that message. He was a sweet man, really, he was. However… He just so happened to be a mundie, which meant that Josy was completely uninterested in him as far as romance went. mostly because of the fact that she was a monster, through and through, and she didn't trust herself. Period.
The entire situation was actually pretty ironic, however, considering the fact that Josy hid away from all of the other Fables. So, basically, she was entirely alone both friendship and romance wise. However, the Fable liked to convince herself that it was both necessary and inevitable, and that she liked it that way. Both mundies and Fables alike had been fearing her name for years; Black Dog, The Dog in the Shadows, The Shadowed Soul Stealer- whatever bullshit those idiots liked to come up with. If anything, she prefered Josy.
The raven-haired Fable sighed a bit and took another drink of her water as she chewed on her thoughts, mulling them over for a short while before coming to the conclusion that she was not going to call her coworker back. Instead, she glanced at the clock in the kitchen. Not much had changed. It was barely 5:30 in the morning.
After a bit of contemplation, she decided to just take a walk. Sure, it was hot outside and so early in the morning that dawn hadn't even shown yet; not exactly an optimal time for a walk. However, Josy needed to clear her thoughts from the nightmares she'd been plagued with, and she hadn't been out of the house in a day or two, so she decided that it was a good idea nonetheless. Besides, no one would really be out and about for an hour or two yet.
So, the Fable returned to her bedroom to get dressed in a pair of tight, black jeans and a purple, button-up blouse before she brushed her hair and slipped on her heeled boots. Grabbing up her keychain from the little hook just beside her front door and her cellphone from the table, Josy exited her apartment and started at a leisurely pace down the sidewalk.
She lived just outside of Fabletown, in an apartment complex owned and populated by mundies. It was pretty humourous if she got to thinking about it, really. She'd been hiding under the Fabletown government nose for centuries without a single lick of suspicion thrown in her general direction. Josy decided that was more pathetic, actually, than funny.
The woman's thoughts were cut short, however, when her sensitive ears picked up on a pair of frantic, slightly hushed voices across the street, behind the gates of The Woodlands. She decided to pause, just briefly enough to listen to what had them so freaked out- she could practically smell the anxiety, along with the familiar scents of Fables that she felt she should probably recognise but couldn't quite do so.
Josy stuck to the shadows, a peculiar talent of hers, and tilted her head in the direction of the apartments' gates.
"I don't recognise it…" Snow mused quietly, in reference to the ring attached, as Bigby pulled the ribbon from the severed head's mouth. The fair Fable made a face at the rather disturbing sight in general, but her professionalism forced her to remember to stay calm.
"Hm… Neither do I," the sheriff replied aimlessly as he looked over the girl's head once again. A sense of slight anger and disappointment filtered through him, and he found himself having to shake his head as he stood straight again, looking around to take in the sights of what he had now officially deemed a crime scene.
Josy was slightly confused, although that quickly turned to her being appalled as she realised that the two of them were discussing what could have made such a clean cut in order to… sever a Fable's head and kill them. She felt a shiver run through her body- that's why she had been on edge ever since she'd neared the location. Josy personally hated, with every fibre of her being, being attuned to death in such a way.
As the sheriff surveyed the scene, the wind shifted so he was downwind and he caught scent of vetiver on what smelled like a female Fable. "Hello?" he called. "Who's there?" He began to walk towards her.
Josy ducked further into the shadows that were cast into the light of the streetlamp by the overhangs on the buildings when she realised that the sheriff must have caught wind of her. When he still approached, she huffed a bit and casually slipped around the corner of the building, sticking to the shadows and heading in a direction that would prevent him from catching her scent again.
He frowned when he got to where she should have been. Looking around, he realized that she must have started walking as soon as he called out. He listened carefully for the sound of footsteps nearby and thought he heard something, so he followed it. Half running and half walking as he got closer, he hoped that this was the person. The wind wasn't blowing in the right direction so he couldn't tell.
Josy could tell, by the sound of the footsteps echoing through the mostly empty streets behind her, that he was following her. She ever-so slightly turned her head, just enough to glance at him, and with a huff, she quickened her pace. Oh no, she was not getting caught. Not now, not after so many centuries of remaining undiscovered.
The sheriff heard the pace of the footsteps quicken and broke out into a full out run. Who would start running when he began his pursuit other than a rapscallion? "Hey!" He called out again. "Come back!"
Josy cursed lightly under her breath when she realised that the Fable had started running and chasing after her, and so she broke into a sprint down the sidewalk. Attempting to play the innocent mundie card, she called out behind her in a falsely benevolent tone, "Stop chasing me! Who are you? I'll call the police!"
"I am the police, stop running!" he shouted as he chased after her. "You ran first!" he said, increasing his earlier pace.
She threw him a baleful glare from over her shoulder, making it clear that she disagreed with that sentiment, before she ran into the street. A car nearly smacked into her, but she just vaulted over the hood and grabbed the pole of a street lamp, hoisting herself up onto it and then jumping onto the roof of one of the many buildings lining the sidewalk. She continued her fleeing, up there, intent on not being caught after so damn long of managing to stay hidden. She just wasn't going to allow it.
Bigby had been close on her heels, though his mind was so into the chase that he failed to notice the car. While she managed to gracefully avoid it and the car moved too fast for him to run right into it, the truck behind him nailed him head on, sending him tumbling over the hood and onto the dirty street. He stood up with a scowl and glared at her up on the rooftops. He didn't take much time to recover, taking off nearly immediately after standing up, chasing her down from the street. He was losing her.
Josy spared him a glance as she skipped rooftops, huffing a bit when she realised just how damn persistent he was. After a while, she ran out of buildings, and had to jump down into the street again. She glanced around, unsure of the sheriff's current location, before she just stopped running and leaned against a brick wall, panting a bit to catch her lost breath. Jesus, that had been a difficult chase, but the raven-haired Fable seemed to think that it was over.
Unfortunately for her, Bigby caught up. Without hesitation, he grabbed her by the arms and pushed her up against the brick wall.
Josy was too shocked to even react as she suddenly found herself pinned against the wall. She blinked once or twice, registering what exactly had just happened, before she settled a baleful glare on him. "Fuck," she cursed simply, not having any other reply.
"Want to explain why you ran?" he questioned, glaring right back at her.
She narrowed her eyes at the sheriff and let out a huff, tired from the chase. "Because you started following me. Excuse me for thinking that was weird," she replied, her usually dulcet tones laced with a sharp, bitter edge.
"So you thought it would be smart to run away from me? Not only the sheriff, but me? I'm sure you know who I am."
She just rolled her eyes a little bit. "Nope. No idea in the slightest."
He glared at her, seeming incredulous. "You're a Fable, and you don't even recognize the big bad wolf?" he questioned, raising his eyebrows and scoffing a bit.
"Sorry, what? I have literally no idea what you're talking about," Josy lied easily, with a huff.
He rolled his eyes. "Drop the act, you smell like a Fable."
She narrowed her eyes at him and pursed her lips. "Fine. You smell like cheap cigarettes," she retaliated.
He snorted a bit, clearly amused by her statement. "That wounds me, it really does," he said sarcastically. "Now you better give me a good reason not to take you in as a suspected felon."
"You started following me!" Josy protested. "These days, you can't be too careful. I wasn't about to just let some freak walk after me," she huffed, glaring at him and bringing her hands up to grip the wrists attached to the hands that were restraining her. "Let go."
He shook his head. "You continued to run after I told you I was the police. You were near the crime scene. And you aren't being exactly cooperative," Bigby pointed out, easily catching all of her lies.
"You were the one that was chasing me for no reason," she said stubbornly. "Just because I was passing by, doesn't make me a damn suspect." Josy just glared at him, gripping his wrists more tightly. "Let me go before this gets ugly," she warned.
"I wasn't going to say you were a suspect. It's protocol for us to ask questions of everyone who may have potentially seen the crime. I was going to ask politely if you would mind answering some questions anonymously, and I'd have let you go on your way, but you ran. That makes you a suspect. Come on. You're coming with me."
"What?! No!" Josy protested, wrenching at his hands and trying to get them off of her. She desperately wanted to avoid any sort of government building, lest the people there recognise her. "I'm not going anywhere with you," she growled.
"Too bad," he said and pulled handcuffs from his belt and slid them onto her wrists, clasping them tight. "Come on, princess."
Josy suddenly hissed when the handcuffs were clasped around her wrists, the metal against her skin making an unpleasant burning sound. "Jesus- fuck," she growled. "Asshole."
He saw that the handcuffs were hurting her and raised his brows. "What kind of Fable gets hurt my iron?" the sheriff questioned rhetorically as he began tugging her behind him, heading back to The Woodlands.
She grunted a bit and dug her heels into the ground stubbornly, attempting to resist being dragged back uptown. "Let go of me," she protested, trying to pull away from him.
"Mhm lemme think about that- no." he said and kept dragging her along.
"Let. Go. Of. Me!" she commanded, dropping all of her weight and falling to her knees on the sidewalk, refusing. "Bastard," she huffed in irritation.
He easily picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. "You know, resisting arrest isn't helping your case," he told her.
Josy squirmed around in his grasp, kicking her legs and struggling to get him to release her. "I don't really give a fuck about my 'case', you better put me down!"
"Mhm, too bad, sunshine," he said, just walking faster and gripping her tighter.
She wriggled in his arms the entire way back up the street, and to The Woodlands. When they both arrived, Snow was- needless to say- surprised to see the sheriff carrying a handcuffed woman over his shoulder.
"Bigby!" Snow scolded, crossing her arms and staring at the both of them. "You can't just randomly run off for some-" she cut herself off when she realised who she was looking at, and her expression betrayed her shock. "Bigby. Put her down and get away from her," Snow suddenly said, looking gravely serious.
Bigby frowned, "What? No. C'mon, help me get her into a cell without iron," he said, trying to walk past Snow.
Snow immediately stepped in front of him. "No. She goes in iron," she commanded, and Josy scowled at her.
"Look at miss princess over here being all commanding," she sneered, earning a glare from Snow. "I agree, though, you should put me down."
"Bigby! She's incredibly dangerous and should be treated as such," Snow said abruptly, which caused Josy to just snort a bit in amusement.
"Ugh could you help, my hands are full," the sheriff sighed, rolling his eyes.
Snow glared at the both of them and yanked open the door, allowing the sheriff to pass through. She kept close, however, and led Bigby to the elevator. When they reached to sub-basement level, she started leading him down a hallway in the direction of a cell that would limit Josy's abilities.
Josy somehow seemed to realise where they were going, the closer they got, and she started squirming for all she was worth. "No- Let go!"
The sheriff actually wasn't paying attention to where they were going, too distracted by the effort of keeping her contained. "Come on, cut it out," he grumbled, jostling her a bit on his shoulder.
Josy grunted a bit and squirmed the entire way there, and when they stopped in front of a completely iron cell with old symbols etched into the bars, she just wriggled even more. "No, no!" Snow huffed and watched a Bigby set Josy down, opened the cell door, and attempted to push her inside. Josy dug her heels into the floor, refusing to go into the cell. "No, you can't!"
Bigby gave her a shove inside and shut the cell door, promptly locking it. "Oh, darn. Looks like we just did."
As soon as the cell door closed, Josy dropped to her knees and remained there. Snow seemed satisfied, and smoothed out her clothing a bit. "There. Right where you belong."
"Fuck… You," Josy growled out. She actually appeared to be in pain, surrounded by so much iron in such a small, confining space, but Snow looked like she was pleased with that and just rolled her eyes.
The sheriff turned on his heel and started to leave, waving over his shoulder at the captive Fable. "Not while I'm on the job," he retorted, earning a growl from Josy. Snow followed after him, looking at him disapprovingly as he pulled a cigarette from his carton and lit it, taking a long drag before finally speaking. "So what was that all about?" Bigby questioned, glancing at Snow as they stopped in front of the elevator and he punched the button.
"Well, you just happened to arrest a government fugitive," Snow replied matter-of-factly, causing the sheriff to raise his brows incredulously. "That was Black Dog."
"Black Dog? Hasn't she been dead for… forever?" Bigby questioned, furrowing his brows at her in disbelief.
"She was presumed to be dead for centuries, yes," Snow replied, stepping into the elevator when the doors opened with a cheerful 'ding!'. Much to her dismay, Bigby followed with his cigarette. She waved away the smoke and narrowed her eyes at him, and he just shrugged. "We can worry about interrogating her later, I'm going to tell Crane what just happened. You need to take the girl's head to Doctor Swineheart, and hurry. Meet me here when you're done."
Bigby nearly groaned at the thought of her telling Crane about the murder, and also about the fact that they had left the poor girl's head unattended. Luckily, when Bigby got outside, it hadn't been touched since it was so early and no one was around. Stepping on his cigarette on the ground, he went about his duty. Black Dog could wait until later- right now, he had to take care of business. A murder in Fabletown… Jesus. He had some serious paperwork ahead of him.