In the presence of mirrors
I come face to face with you
Which is me?
--PM Dawn "The Presence of Mirrors"


Anne stared at herself, in the mirror.

"I didn't look like this." She leaned over the grubby white porcelain sink and looked into it. She whispered, "I know that much..not the eyes...."

What should have been staring back at her was dark brown, large, liquid irises. The silver streaks spoking out from the pupils and greying the brown out were new. She didn't know what had happened to cause it. The spokes gleamed like metal in the dingy flourescent light of the bathroom light over the mirror. Somehow, that scared her worse than anything. More than the unreal pallor to her features reminding her of the sink, and definitely more than the slightly pointed canine teeth. She *remembered* the teeth, at least. She'd had them since they came in at puberty. Some girlfriend had made a joke sometime of what Halloween costumes she could use. (Anne'd cheerfully flipped her off. But what coffee joint they were sitting in, or where, or even what street or city fell into a void.)

The rest seemed all right enough. Five feet five inches, very slender to almost fragile looking, shoulder-lengths of raven hair, elfin, triangular features. She'd gotten looks on campus, oh yes, and inappropriate suggestions from drunken fraternity boys as she'd shoved shots at them in some unknown bar. Crap about how it wasn't just drinks they needed from the bartender.

God, she'd hated it. She couldn't remember everything, but this was another thing entirely. She hated the idea with a venom she didn't know she'd had.

She winced a bit as a half-healed wound twinged, one hand going to cradle the offended part of the ribcage. It was one of the bad ones, the one that had gone deep. /Iron taste in her mouth, liquid gurgle in her lungs, running, falling, red darkness across her vision, a distant shout of rage--/ and the rest of the recollection fell into the abyss. She shuddered, nausea hitting her, and she folded down and put her forehead on her knees.

I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am
who I am

The dual pendant necklace around her neck seemed to feel even colder for a second.

There was the distant sound of a door opening and someone entering. "Anne?"
Trish's voice could be heard calling out.

Anne gave a monumental effort and pulled herself together, making herself stand and seem unaffected. "Yeah?" she called out.

"Oh, cool. You feel up to going out? We're going to get you some new clothes. It's a five-minute walk to the the bus stop and I don't want to take the Beast into Du Pont."

"...Sure." She slowly walked out.


Trish cautiously peeled away some bandages later, getting a hiss from Anne.

"Hmm. Looks like it's getting there. Maybe some scarring, but not bad. It should fade."

Anne cautiously twisted around to look at her over her shoulder, still holding the shirt up. "That tape pulls."

"Sorry." Trish cut away some more of the offending tape. "I'm keeping a few bandages on the ones that aren't entirely closed just to be careful, but for the rest at least your midsection's no longer going to look like The Mummy." She continued with her task, redoing the bandaging on the few remaining unhealed areas, leaving the rest of the skin to breathe. After she was done, she carefully helped the other woman put her tee shirt down. "Done."

"Thanks."

"N'prob." Trish slid back into her leather jacket, which had a rather fetching stylized lightning-bolt theme edging around the front zipper and merging into the collar.

"Where's Dante?"

"Out and about. Had a job to do."

Anne nodded. "Where do you live?"

Trish pondered. "Few miles from here. Bit of a classier neighborhood, though that isn't saying much. Why?"

"I...uh. Didn't know, really. I'm not sure where I should be staying."

"Whichever you prefer. You're just in Dante's place because that was the closest."

Anne nodded.

"I'd....try to earn my keep, somehow."

Trish smiled a little bit. "All in its time. You heal first."

"My clothes?

"Are perfectly good coming with. Hm, more thinking about it, be best you stay with me. I've got room and Dante's idea of housekeeping gets scary at times. Plus it's safer where I am. It's also closer to Adams-Morgan and the Kalorama. Good resturaunts there."

Anne made a face. "Cold pizza."

"Exactly." Trish grinned wryly, remembering Dante's usual tack when feeding himself. "Plus, he gets...protective of his place. I don't mind houseguests." Trish smiled. "I honestly don't. I'm new to the area myself, more or less, so I don't know much."

Anne arched eyebrows inquiringly. Trish smiled a little bit.

"...Long story."

"Want to hear it."

"You will." /If I can think of a way to censor the weird stuff so she doesn't get psyched,,/ Trish thought.


It waited patiently in the basement. The area was pitch black and smelt of urine, blood, rat droppings, and mildew, which it paid no attention to.

There had been a homeless person there, which had been killed. The gang that used the place to sell and smoke crack had evacuated from the condemned tenement after portions of the former vagrant started to show up. The rats had been more sensible, and had fled when it arrived and stayed away.

Shortly after that, one of the gang that had tried to shoot the imposter down had run from the place screaming at a glimpse of movement and what caused it. So now it waited. It hated being far from the sea, in the hideously dry basement, with the dried blood and growing stench of decay. But it had no choice. It had to go from the bay, far, far from its normal grounds, and so it went.

An eye rolled, restive at the stench and muffled noise of traffic, and chewed at a portion of arm.

Darkness would come. It would hunt then.



*Lyrics in the chapter came from Supertramp's "The Logical Song."