Castle: Nevermore
Disclaimer: I don't own Castle or The Crow.
A/N: It's been a long time since I've written anything, but I had to get this idea out there. Written in present tense for the most part, but if I publish further chapters I'll likely go back to the standard past tense.
Somewhere in a Manhattan cemetery, a lone crow flies through the night, seemingly seeking seeking shelter from the oncoming storm. By a hair's breadth the crow flits through the gap between the gate and the lintel of a small crypt - unusual in a modern day New York graveyard. The crow alights atop the single headstone, shaking the water from its feathers. The marker is simple, yet elegant, despite the extravagance of being in a crypt, the girl buried below having been long terrified of being buried alive after reading one of her father's books at too tender an age.
The bird caws, as if in protest against the autumn rain, then begins to tap its wickedly sharp beak against the marker, beating a rapid tattoo against the stone. Her father would have been unable to stop himself from quoting Poe:
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you" here I opened wide the door;
Darkness there and nothing more.
Surprisingly, there is an answer, as the thin stone lid of the sarcophagus tilts and then tumbles to the floor with a muffled boom. The girl inside sits up gasping in pain and confusion, her flawless skin gleaming in the faint light from the City that Never Sleeps, a far cry from how it had looked when she was buried.
Hers had been a closed caskett funeral.
The crow leaps to her shoulder but she has no fear of it. Instead following its unspoken direction to leave, she gets to her feet and staggers out into the storm, instinctively unlocking the gate that has kept her safe from the too curious and morbidly obsessed. The bird guides her out of the cemetery and through the maze of alleys and backstreets, along the way picking up a ratty brown coat discarded in an alley by a dazed junkie.
No one pays attention to her as she stands on the corner, looking up in confusion at the upper floor of a building across the street, trying to remember why it feels so familiar. Heedless of traffic she wanders across the intersection to the alley behind the building and down the ramp into the parking garage beneath. At the elevator her fingers automatically enter in a four digit code, releasing the lock. She presses the button for the fourth floor and gasps as memories overtake her...
A tall man hugging her - her father.
A woman leaning on a cane, handing her plane tickets. "Alexis, I made some calls, and there's a clerk's job waiting for you at CBI in Sacramento, if you want it." - Kate.
A younger man waiting till the doors closed on her father and his girlfriend, then pressing her up against the wall of the elevator and kissing her with passion. - Ashley.
Four people wearing clown masks, three guys, one girl, all cruelly anticpating what was to come.
Alexis stumbles out of the elevator into a well lit hallway. Still reeling from the memories she finds herself in front of a door that still has yellow tape stretched across it, despite being a year past in the lucrative real estate market of Manhattan. Her hand reaches forward of its own accord to tear it away and push open the door. She could see many people opening this door in the past - family. Friends. Killers.
The apartment beyond remains largely unchanged from the aftermath of That Night. Plastic sheeting is firmly taped to the shattered window, keeping out the storm. Some few remnants of the window are scattered below, a scattering of crimson droplets leading back to the black stain in the centre of the room. Once a couch had been there, but now there is only ash and char and pain. Alexis can feel it from the doorway...
-The door slammed open, startling the teens making out on the couch as four masked intruders entered the loft. "Well, well. Looks like a party," one of them, a woman laughed cruelly, waving a gun in their direction, "I guess we missed our invitation." Two of the other clowns grabbed Ashley as he stood in front of Alexis while she tried to rebutton her blouse. They spun him around, arms bent behind his back and forced him to his knees. One of them held a knife to his throat while the other held his arms. The woman with the gun marched up and held the gun in Alexis' face. "Your daddy and his girlfriend were warned to keep out of things. They didn't listen," she said while the fourth clown, looming so very close and large in Alexis' vision pushed her hard back onto the couch, reaching down to tear her blouse open. "Now its time to pay the price."
"NO!" Alexis screams, echoing the past as she forces the entirety of that memory into the darkest corner of her mind. Alexis opens her eyes to find she is now kneeling beside the char mark on the carpet, the fingers of her right hand not quite touching the darkness there. She wants to run away screaming from the horror of what had happened to her, but there is more she still needs to know. Alexis stands and walks to to the windows, drawn to the shards of glass there. Kneeling beside a large fragment off to one side of the shattered window, Alexis reaches down and touches it...
-Ashley stood with his back to the window, flickering orange light reflecting in his horrified eyes as the couch and the girl he loved burned. A cellphone rang and the woman with the gun removed her mask and answered it. Ordinarily a pretty woman her face was marred by a scar linking her eyebrow to her jaw. She ended the call and aimed the gun to his head remarking, "Seems Daddy's home, won't he be angry with what you've done?" She pulled the trigger, the .45 calibre bullet ending Ashley's life and shattering the window behind him. His body fell to land amongst the pedestrians below.
White hot rage fills Alexis and clenching her hand into a fist she smashes it into the offending glass again and again, her crow cawing with each impact. The moment is fleeting though, and she watches in amazement, the shards falling from the wounds as they heal in seconds. Alexis rises as she realizes why she is back in the world. They would pay.
Quickly she walks up stairs, removing the dress she'd been buried in, replacing it with clothing her father and grandmother's legacy told her was much for fitting for the recently but no longer dead. Once upon a time she'd gone shopping with an old school friend turned goth, her father never knowing just what she'd been convinced to buy. Black leather pants, fitting like a second skin are tucked into a pair of calf high buckled boots while a long sleeved black blouse is cinched with a wide belt with a heavy silver buckle. A black leather duster finishes the outfit, but looking in the mirror Alexis feels she still looks... too Alexis.
Deteremined to solve this problem she goes into what had once been her Gram's bedroom. Most of her grandmother's belongings are gone, but the Emergency Stash is still in the chest in the closet. Alexis... No. Alex pulls it out and opens it. Gathering what she needed she sits in front of the dressing table. Tying back her hair, Alex picks up a pair of heavy scissors and cuts it off above the tie. Her hair is now short above the neck except for longer pieces that curl around her jaw. Above the table's mirror her grandmother's tragedy mask watches, the comedy mask having fallen and shattered on the hardwood floor. She feels it will be the finishing touch and reaches for the makeup case...
Alex's father had once been obsessed with pirate movies, his daughter had simply been a fan of one of the actors. But for months they'd watched films and played pirate, going so far as to getting fencing lessons. Distractions aside, Alexis had been the better swordsman, but it had been her father who'd spent a small fortune on real swords that now hung in a cabinet in his office. Breaking it open, Alex removes a rapier and hangs the scabbard from her belt.
The crow flies in and lands on her shoulder, its cry announcing that she is finally ready to hunt down those who wronged her.