Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright or trademark infringement is intended and no money is being made from this story. It is purely a fanfiction story.
A/N: I write fanfiction for fun and to keep my creative muscles in shape when I need to write something that is not my own original novel, poems and short stories. This fanfiction is just a hobby along with my other ones (plus I've always wanted to give fanfiction ago and see what happens). Updating might be irregular but enjoy and let me know what you think.
Water.
Dark and stormy.
Wet earth.
The dark and muddy kind, she could still smell it at the end of her nose.
Her paint stained fingers reached for her clay pipe and she made a fresh pipe of tobacco to get rid of the stench.
Soot. The kind that came tumbling down an unclean chimney. She saw that too. Ash that came from bone, flashed in the water and dark lines.
Nareli glanced at her latest creation and exhaled a deep breath of smoke. The oil painting looked like a walking nightmare. A complete monstrosity that would no doubt sell once she found the right kind of morbid customer.
It was a darn pity, it wasn't a commission piece, she thought because there was no other way she would've thought of such a monstrosity to paint. She had her clairvoyance to blame for that. The images came in flickers through her dreams and it was only through painting that damn thing that she could make sense of it. Once painted, the images finally left.
This particular dream had been haunting her mind for the past three days. It got so bad that she had to forgo sleep the previous eve to paint it.
"What kind of beast are you?" The whispered words flew from her tongue and the painting, as always, didn't speak. Instead, it showed what she had been seeing.
Out of the murky water and scattered tree, she painted a dark figure covered in ash and the strangest of markings. The only human thing about the figure was his piercing blue eyes.
She traced one of the bold tattoos with a careful eye. They weren't gyspy at all in origin. Irish or Romani and she would know from her many travels with her gypsy clan. But those days were far and few in-between.
Brace, her rather grouchy and aging father needed the financial assistance and he always refused to take on the gypsy lifestyle even before her mother died from a case of yellow fever. So when she got word that Horace Delaney wasn't fairing well, she travelled back to the dreary streets of London. The old master soon died after her return so she setup shop as a wayward artist, fortune teller and performer with the local gypsies.
Horace Delaney only had a daughter left to inherit his estates and Nareli hoped that Zilpha Geary would allow her aging father keep on to maintain the Chamber House. But all of that was up in the air until the lawyers read Horace Delaney's will.
Her father didn't know how she made the bulk of her fortune. He thought she made a reasonable wage by selling paintings of landscapes. He didn't know that she made the bulk of her fortune by painting nudes for higher society and he didn't need to know that either. It was because of this that she mostly painted in brothel establishments.
Nareli knew Helga von Hinten from her youth and the madam was keenly business-minded. She gave her a small room to work in at her brothel for a small price. The ironic part was that Helga operated in the old Delaney shipping offices by the docks.
She had no idea who the shadowed man in the painting was so she stepped away to pour some coffee. The telltale sounds of the old wooden floor creaked and moaned under her moving weight. She also heard the faint groans of an aging fellow directly beneath and she raised eyebrows. Her makeshift studio was above the main foyer.
Helga didn't usually start taking clients this early in the morning. It was an odd occurrence but oh well, business was business. She briefly wondered how long the old fool downstairs would last when she suddenly overheard a scuffle. Helga raised her voice and then bitter silence followed.
Out of curiosity and concern for Helga, Nareli quickly put her coffee down and reached for her pistol, which she kept ready to go. She stuck her pipe back in her mouth and tiptoed out of her studio. She glanced down the hall and saw some of the girls, who looked like they just woke up, quietly peek through the stair railings in their nightgowns. They looked startled out of their wits.
Nareli crawled up to their side on light feet and quietly told them to back up for their safety. The few girls quietly obeyed without question and Nareli moved past. She glanced through the railing when she made it to the stairs and she spotted Helga stand toe-to-toe with a very tall, broad-shouldered man in a top hat and long coat.
Helga looked like she was in a heated conversation match with the strange man that was now holding something metal up to Helga's throat. It could've been a knife for all she knew, so Nareli immediately went on the defensive and took aim while she stealthy moved down the stairs.
The man unexpectedly lashed out and kicked the table beside Helga and the wood shattered underneath his boot, along with the lamp on top.
"People who do not know me soon come to understand that I do not have any sense," The man spoke clearly in unspoken threat and shook what looked like a key in front of Helga's face.
Nareli then made her presence known by cocking her pistol. The telltale sound immediately made the man turn his top hat towards her and stern ocean blue eyes flashed her way.
"Funny. People tend to say the same about me," she pointed her pistol straight at his head and the man took a cautious step away from Helga. He didn't look frightened one bit though much to her annoyance.
"Order your girl to heel," The man ordered in a gruff voice and Helga looked in-between them, uneasily.
"I am no one's girl," Nareli hissed.
"Esther," Helga quickly called for her attention by using her Christian name instead of her Romani one but Nareli kept her focus on the strange man. He sized her up with critical blue eyes that strangely felt familiar. They were the same electric shade of blue as the figure's eyes in her painting.
The man looked to be in his late thirties and he had a rugged beard that matched the scar going over his right eye. If she weren't currently prepared to shoot the bastard, she would think he was handsome.
He hummed deep in his throat then and dismissed her completely to her surprise as if he no longer decreed her as a threat.
"Get out!" She left the stairs completely with a growl and he glared her way again. He moved to make a step towards her but Helga quickly stepped in front of her and forced her pistol upwards.
"I remember you," Helga told the man and he glared down his nose her way instead.
"Now, please do not misunderstand the situation," he spoke again with that gruff voice.
"You send me 12 men, I will return you 12 sets of testicles in a bag, and we can watch your little whores devour them together, before I chop off your trotters and boil them."
The image made Nareli feel sick but she kept her face emotionless like Helga.
"Two hours," The man grounded out and turned around to take his leave.
"I remember you," Helga spoke loudly to his back.
"Heard the stories. If I give you a girl, I will never see her again."
The man glared their way again and his gaze made silent, dark promises.
"You heard right. Be punctual." He finally took his leave with a flutter of his dark coat tails. Helga didn't breath out in relief until he left and Nareli uncocked her pistol.
"Who was that?" She demanded and Helga's dark eyes said it all.
"James Delaney."