A/N: Hallo, friends! As promised, a new chapter! This one's a bit shorter, I'll admit, but I hope you enjoy it. I'm still working on this as much as I can. Currently, my family and I are experiencing a bit of sickness run through our house. It's quite severe...whether or not it's COVID-19, we aren't sure, but we are just taking care of ourselves and staying healthy. Your support, prayers, and thoughts are all tremendously appreciated. I love you all!
AND: super ginormous thank you to all of the anonymous guests on FFnet who comment! You are BRLLIANT, and I wish I could respond, but alas! I cannot. You know who you are, and I LOVE YOU. :)
Stay healthy, friends. I pray for you all each morning. I really, really do.
Tschüss! :)
The young Russian girl kept her head down as she walked, trying not to draw attention to herself…despite the fact that her hair was an intoxicating mixture of rosy red and the hottest of pinks.
Shoving her hands into her pockets, the cold, wintry wind chiseled at her soft features, and she wiped her nose with the back of her hand. There was a stinging sensation in her lungs as the sharp air filled her chest. She coughed, and a small cloud of breath filled the space in front of her.
And suddenly, the distant peals of a church bell marked the beginning of the new year.
She'd been in this dump of a city for two weeks, trying to find the one person who mattered to her employer: an approximately five-foot-tall Englishwoman with remarkably sharp features, dark hair, and fierce, penetrating blue eyes, as per the photograph she had been provided with for a description.
The wanted woman was apparently able to speak Russian, too, albeit rudimentarily.
So far, it had been two grueling weeks of searching through this God-forsaken city that she could never stand being in. Moscow was home, and nothing would ever convince her that Kirov was a nice place to live…or visit, for that matter.
She kept walking down the road, her head down like the rest of the depressed lot. Everyone was depressed in Kirov. Whenever she thought of it, her poetic mind would tell her that in Kirov, "everything is devastating; the streets reek of hopelessness." After her first trip here many years ago with her father, she'd convinced herself that it was one of the worst towns in Russia. Especially now, during winter, when the icy climate bites at your unadorned cheeks.
"Oi! Ostorozhno!" a man shouted as she accidentally hit his shoulder walking by. "Hey! Watch it!" She only shrugged, scoffed, and continued trudging along the weary path. Everyone was like this in Kirov.
She had thought last week that the one woman in the café had been the one she sought for. But then the lithe thing turned her head and the nose was all wrong. Then there had been that lone woman in the library with the woolen shawl. But the hair was pulled back in a tight, blonde bun and the eyes were brown. And, to the girl's utter vexation, there had been the small woman in the cathedral, who had fit every manner of the description from afar off, but upon closer look it was revealed that she could never have been the same woman, because her cheeks were much too full.
Cursing under her breath, the young girl kept walking, kicking stones in frustration down the ice-caked, salt-crusted paths. The drab, grey buildings seemed to add depression to the toxic melancholy of Kirov. The snow, gathered in clusters on the corners of the streets and sidewalks and buildings, were like rain clouds dampening the souls of the city's inhabitants.
All was bleak.
No one was out walking tonight, even though it was New Year's Eve and the midnight hour had chimed from the churches to ring in the new year. It was much too cold for anyone to be out this late…anyone except our young Russian girl.
Walking across the street like a furtive little squirrel, she produced her phone from her pocket and opened the message her employer had sent with the woman's photograph. She had to see it again. She chuckled to herself as she examined the woman's face for what seemed to be the fiftieth time: the high cheeks, the thin lips, the dark hair, and the blue eyes…even the way she glanced past the lens made her look unearthly, elusive, and faerie-like.
It vexed her beyond reason.
She had been so certain that those women had been her…and yet upon a second glance, she would realize just how difficult this woman was going to be to find.
She had found people for her employer in two days before during other assignments. How was this woman so concealed, so superb, so professional as to manage staying hidden for two weeks from the scrutinous eyes of our young Russian girl?
Hmm?
What's that?
Her eyes sharpened, and they outlined a figure standing below a streetlamp up ahead. Man or woman she could not tell yet, but whoever they were, they were advancing rapidly in her direction. Whether she was their object or not, she could not tell. But the strides were deliberate, and the way in which each step was taken made her feel uneasy.
Concealing her phone in her pocket, she pulled her jacket closer around her once more, adjusted her thin gloves, and turned on her heel to deliberately walk in the opposite direction. Despite the amount of martial arts training she had endured, she didn't enjoy the way this unknown person was singling her out, and she felt too annoyed to defend herself or get into another scrape. It was too risky, especially at this time of night.
The young Russian walked for about ten minutes through the deserted city streets, passing only a few downtrodden citizens of Kirov. No matter how far she walked, she fancied she could still hear footsteps following behind her. Throwing a quick glance over her shoulder, she could still see the anonymous person striding briskly in the same direction as she. Her intrigue was on fire, and she was finding herself less occupied with the elusive Englishwoman and more occupied with the mysterious individual trailing after her.
Venturing deeper into Kirov, she found herself at an intersection, and her path ventured across the street. To cross without waiting for a red light was hardly dangerous, and she could have gone a different way, but she wondered…if she were to wait at this light for it to turn, would the stranger do the same?
She waited for the light, and eventually, the anonymous "pursuer" stopped beside her and waited with her for WALK sign to appear.
"Privet," our young Russian said, trying to catch a glimpse of the stranger's face.
"Privet," a woman's unaccented voice responded from beneath a dark hood. But really; anyone could say privet without an accent. She tried to remember that.
"Cold tonight, ya?" our young Russian asked, still speaking in her native tongue and hoping the woman would turn and reply. All she needed was one look—just one look at the woman's face.
"Da," the strange woman responded, still looking toward the other side of the street. Most of the people in Kirov were standoffish, so this was nothing new. Still, the girl couldn't help being intrigued.
"What is your name?" the mysterious woman asked, folding her arms across her chest and leaning against the lamppost. She stil wasn't facing our young Russian, which irritated the latter immensely.
"What's it to you?" the girl snapped, shoving red hair behind her small, pierced ears.
"No need to get excited," the woman replied. "I was only asking. This place is…much different from Moscow, isn't it?"
The teen's heart stopped for a brief moment, and her brain banged against the side of her skull.
"Who says I've been to Moscow?"
The woman laughed.
"I do. You're from Moscow, idiot. Don't pretend you don't know that."
"How would you know?"
The mysterious creature only laughed and wrapped a scarf closer around her face. She said no more and waited for the light to turn. A few cars came down the road, taking advantage of the last few moments before the light turned red.
An ambulance sounded in the distance.
Our young Russian found herself incredibly confused. She couldn't understand this woman or what the dialogue that had just taken place could have meant. She bit her lip as she always did when she was agitated. She still hadn't gotten a look at the woman's face…
If she wanted to see it before they parted ways, then she needed to act quickly before the light turned. It was only a matter of seconds before it would.
"Ah!" she cried out, holding her head and falling to the salt-crusted, icy ground. "Ah! My head, my head!" she screamed in English, shutting her eyes and gritting her teeth. She'd done this about fifty times over the last few years, and each time she practiced, the performance became more and more convincing.
Instantly, the woman at the light turned, her blue eyes wide. Pushing her hood behind her head, she got down on her knees and put a gloved index finger to our young Russian's lips.
"Come now," she said, in perfect British English, "there's no need for that. Don't pretend you haven't seen me before." A thin smile formed on her face, and the Russian realized that this was the one and only woman she had been searching for.
"What are you talking about?!" the girl seethed, still convulsing and generating saliva in her mouth and letting her eyes roll into the back of her head.
"You could have been a little less obvious, if you want my advice, dear girl," the woman crooned. "The café, the library, the cathedral…you seemed so excited, but then I turned my head. Were my faces really so convincing? I won't pretend I haven't hidden myself before," she said, putting a stray strand of deep brown hair behind her ear.
Our young Russian was tempted to stop shaking with the capacity of realization and fury that had awakened in her breast, but she continued to writhe and squirm, saliva officially falling in one line out of the corner of her mouth.
"I don't understand! Help me!" she said, hitching her breath in her wet throat and masterfully crafting a choke. The Englishwoman laughed.
"Dear God," she mused, "you're quite good at it, aren't you? That almost set my heart in my mouth. But really…you can tell him you've found me. I honestly don't care if he knows where I am. Tell him. Please, do tell him. Irene Adler is in Kirov, and it's about time he knew. He's been a bit slow, really. I won't say I blame him. I'm hard to find, and besides…" she said, smirking intuitively, "I like keeping my men on a tight leash."
Standing to her feet, she left the girl on the sidewalk, still shaking and choking.
"Oh, and don't worry. I'll call an ambulance if it makes you feel better, but I hardly doubt you'll need one," Irene said, her back to the girl and pulling out her mobile with a thin, manicured hand. She held it over her shoulder to show our young Russian that she had dialed the numbers 103 for an ambulance.
She waited a moment to allow the girl a bit of time, and after a brief pause, she turned on her sharp heel and chuckled to herself. The girl was gone, and there was no sign of her anywhere…just as she had assumed.
"He's taught her well," she said under her breath, pocketing her mobile and walking across the street as the light turned.
Slipping her hand into her coat, she wrapped her thin fingers around a revolver. Her small, shuddery breaths made thick clouds of condensation in the frigid air, and her lungs caught on fire with the cold.
Disappearing into the night and feeling the talons of anticipation seize her iron-fisted soul, Irene Adler kept a steady hand on her cocked revolver and counted the minutes left until she was inside a windowless room and thus invisible from the eyes of the bleak, ugly streets of Kirov, Russia.
