The year is 2002 and FBI Special Agent Sarah Williams has been sent to New York City to investigate and detain a notorious serial killer whose savage crimes have left the city paralyzed with fear. Falsely accused of murder and unwillingly bound by magic to an infuriating woman who destroyed his labyrinth, Jareth must work with her to find the real killer before time runs out.
The Goblin King Killer
By MightyMightyMunson
Litha - Part 2
There are rules in the world we live in, some made by humans and others defined by nature itself. While the laws that govern human beings are, like their makers, sometimes mercurial and fleeting - changing from leader to leader or age to age, there are older laws, created by far older beings that are hewn into the earth and rock, seared into fire, frozen into water and signed into the air. These laws were made to be inviolate, the consequences of breaking them severe.
And until the early evening of Friday, June 21st, 2002 in the human metropolis of New York City in a beautiful green park, next to a once tranquil pond, the greatest of these laws, enacted over a millennium before to ensure the survival of their kind, a law that clearly stated that the creatures and beings of the Otherworld may not openly prey upon large numbers of humankind in their true form or openly use magic against them, had never been truly broken.
The sundering of the ancient agreement was felt by all and sent shockwaves through the entire Otherworld, eliciting ripples of dismay, fear or anger from most beings, while some darker and decidedly more dangerous elements found only pleasure and long-awaited anticipation in the news that spread through the lands. If the ban could be broken by one of their kind, what would stop others from also seeking their fill?
In one small kingdom, situated far East of the Otherworld's center, the sleeping ruler of the realm also felt the disturbance, as if a soft breeze on still waters heralded the coming of a great storm.
Otherworld Year 10,475
Thirteen O'clock - Goblin Standard Time
The Castle beyond the Goblin City
Jareth awoke as the first whispers of the oath breaking moved through this kingdom, like a sigh on a cold, winter night. On his back, staring up at a beautifully colored mosaic tiled ceiling that flickered and reflected the light of a low fire that had not quite gone out, the Goblin King remained outwardly still while his sharp mind traversed the many possible roads this violation of law could meander down. None were pleasant
A quiet, almost weary sigh escaped him, the sound mostly hidden by a crackle of burning logs, and seconds later, a soft knock on his bedroom door.
"Enter," he said, his low voice still a muzzy from sleep. He sat up in the large canopy bed, black silken sheets sliding down his bare chest, pooling at his hips. Made of ancient oak from forests that had been destroyed centuries before, his bed was resplendent with carvings of stylistic goblins hunting woodland creatures and a winding, elaborate maze design that covered the legs and posts of the bed.
"Your Majesty," A small, slightly misshapen head poked out from behind the door, as if the goblin at the door was leery of entering his sovereign's sleeping area. Wild tufts of blue-black hair, sparse in the sides and back and thick at the crown clashed with a pair of beady, wide set, red eyes, half hidden by bristly brows.
The short, squat creature was clad in the armor of the goblin army and was dragging a too heavy mace behind him, the weapon leaving scrape marks on the stone floor, "''Sorry to bother your worshipfulness, but there's been a disturbance, though I can't rightly say what it's about." The little goblin summoned his courage and stepped through the threshold into his King's bedroom. Wisely, he left the mace at the door.
"What I can tell you, my Lord…" his voice dropped and he looked both left and right as if making sure there weren't unwanted eyes and ears in the bedchamber, "...is that the attack chickens are restless."
Jareth blinked.
"And what, pray tell…" at this point in his existence, he found that there were few things his subjects could do or say that would elicit so much as a raised eyebrow from him, but this goblin, Lickspittle if he recalled, was apparently one for surprises, "...are attack chickens?"
"Special project, Sire. Made em' too keep the castle safe at night. If I do say so myself, there are a fearsome lot, sharp beaked and sure clawed," Lickspittle chuffed proudly, his smile revealing a row of disturbingly sharp, uneven teeth, "they alerted me to," the goblin paused, bushy eyebrows crinkling with the force of thought, "well, whatever it is that moved through the castle."
"It would seem that your...attack chickens are the most perceptive creatures in my army." Jareth's lips twitched slightly, though whether in annoyance or mirth it was hard to say. The realization was not a pleasant one, though not entirely surprising.
"I bred them 'specially for their brains, if you catch my meaning, Sire," Lickspittle tried to wink but didn't quite manage it. "Say…" he shuffled his feet, then took a few steps towards the bed where his sovereign lord rested, "...you know what this is about?" he motioned around the room and then towards the large open balcony that was letting in cool, fresh air. "Must say, it felt…odd. That's the word, Sire. Odd."
Jareth cocked his head at an angle the way a bird of prey might and regarded the goblin for a moment. It had been days…or even perhaps weeks since he'd held any sort of conversation with another living being and despite still being weary, this minion of his had shown what had to be considered a form of initiative, a rarity indeed for an enlisted goblin.
(I suppose he deserves an answer…)
"What you sensed," he looked at the goblin's armor and a singular, faded cloth medallion on the goblin's chest, "Third Class Private Lickspittle, " the goblin beamed at being named correctly, "was the Great Law of the Otherworld being broken."
"You mean the law about not locking up the gates at night or lettin' fairies near the ale?"
"Worse than that," Jareth rose from the bed with a sigh, unencumbered by clothing and strode slowly over the fire and the warmth if offered against the deep night, his mismatched eyes lambent as he stared into the dying flames. The goblin behind him gasped, struggling to imagine what could be worse than fairie infected ale.
"An Otherworlder has attacked humans in the mortal realm in their true form, using unveiled magic."
"That's it ?" Lickspittle considered this lackluster news for a moment. "All this fuss is about mortal folk?" That hardly sounded worthy of rousing his crack squad of attack chickens
"Oh, the fuss hasn't even started," Jareth muttered ominously as he leaned one arm against the fireplace mantle, the weariness he felt having little to do with lack of sleep, "but it will."
"Beggin' your pardon, but we goblins don't like humans, much, Sire. Messy business they are, prone to causing all sorts of mischief." Lickspittle thought of one human in particular who'd quite literally turned the world upside down, but did not dare say her name as that would be an instant ticket to getting bogged for eternity.
"So…what does it matter if a few of 'em get squashed?"
Jareth looked over his shoulder at the small goblin. His angular features were half-hidden in fire and shadow as he considered the question and how to respond in a way that the creature would comprehend.
"Because humans are very dangerous and don't react well to being squashed by things they don't understand."
"That's fair, I 'spose," the Third Class Private conceded. Feeling like he'd wandered accidentally into deep conversational waters, the goblin thought about squashings and mortals and all the messes that they were wont to make. The prohibition of fairies fiddling around with the castle ale reserves seemed a much more serious threat.
Jareth could almost hear the rusty gears in the goblin's pea brain seizing up.
"There are also far many more of them than there are of us," he added for good measure.
Lickspittle scowled, thinking ferociously as he gave his beaked nose a thorough picking for good measure, "so, we're outnumbered?"
"Quite."
The goblin soldier rocked back on his booted feet, then forward again, his thinking reserves nearly spent. "So, what's gonna happen to the one who did it? You gonna bog 'em?"
There was nothing worse than being bogged.
"I'm not going to do anything or the sort," Jareth's turned away from the fire and the weariness in his voice and bearing retreated, leaving behind a calculating, almost cold expression as he gave voice to his thoughts for the first time, "my kingdom will remain neutral in these matters and by doing so, avoid the fallout that is to come."
The intricately woven carpet beneath his bare feet gave way to cold stone as he walked out of his bedroom onto the spacious balcony and looked out at the moonlit expanse of his kingdom. It looked very different from the land a young human girl had torn apart years before. He'd seen to that.
"The oath breaker will be punished by the greater powers that be and that will be the end of it."
(I hope…)
"So, no attack chickens, then, Your Majesty?" the little goblin's shoulders drooped despondently.
The Goblin King stepped up onto the ledge of the balcony. Balancing easily on a precarious ledge, his naked body backlit by a full moon and a dusting of stars, he looked down at the now sniffling goblin, "Not this time, First Class Private Lickspittle." A faint smile slid across his face like a fleeting shadow, and then he stepped off the ledge and was gone.
Half a wing-beat later, a large, tawny-white owl flew up and around the stone castle turret, circling higher until it disappeared into the night, oblivious to the sounds of the cleverest goblin in the realm rejoicing in his sudden promotion.
Friday, June 21, 2002
8:35 PM EDT
New York City
Central Park
Delacorte Theater
The remains of Turtle Pond
Wide eyed with shock and still treading water, Sarah stared up, mouth agape, as a tall figure materialized before her eyes as corrupted tendrils or darkness twisted together, making shape and form where only shadow had been before.
A girlish part of her heart that she'd banished right along with every flight of fancy she'd been able to capture began to traitorously clench as she watched dark armor appear. She hated the bewildering sensation of betrayal and despised herself for being so weak. Yes, she had seen this sort of armor before, on a dark night when she, to her everlasting regret, had become enmeshed in a little red book and in a fit of anger and childish resentment, had wished her brother away to the King of the Goblins.
(Wait…)
She looked again, squinting, trying to see past the shifting smoke and darkness.
No - something wasn't right.
Sarah kicked in the water, trying to make distance between herself and the figure emerging from a swath of churning darkness with an awkward one armed backstroke, all the while trying to keep her weapon up and out of the water with one hand.
The illogical, yet stabbing sense of treachery that made the marrow of her bones ache began to twist and warp just like the dark plackart began to take its final shape, the surface not shiny like the overlapped wings of night beetles and made of supple, studded black leather that her foolish fingers had always wanted to touch. The pauldron also lacked the beautiful details, the whorls and lines that were vaguely a dark sort of art deco mixed with a wicked Victorian aesthetic.
The only motif to be found here was one of death. The armored breastplate was an abomination of design, looking like a stylistically charred sternum and set of ribs that covered a broad chest. The lines of the tightly fitted gauntlets were designed to mimic the ulna and radius, likewise burnt and the color of a spent fire. The rest of the armor was the same, a skeletal mockery fashioned into something dull and metallic, as if death and suffering had somehow sandblasted itself upon the figure's armor.
While the first figure of her long repressed memory had worn a cape like the night sky, spattered with starlight and an imposing curved collar, the raiment this figure wore was a dark shroud, a blackened, winding sheet that fell in tatters around tall black boots, the tips of which were sharpened with metal spikes.
No, this was not him. The realization brought with it an irrational surge of relief, the emotion followed swiftly by raw terror as there was only one otherworldly alternative.
"Hello, Poppet. Did you miss me?"
Unable to stop, Sarah closed her eyes in horror of the voice. More than anything, it was proof that the man-shaped creature standing before her was not the one who had asked for so little and so much at the same time, demanding that she fear him, love him, and obey him and that in return her would be her slave.
With him, there had been silk over steel, low and damningly winning, a voice she sometimes still heard in her sleeping mind in the middle of the night when she tossed and turned fitfully in bed, insatiated and alone. This voice - this abomination of sound was like a loathsome, wriggling thing, many legged and filthy, burrowing into her ears and skull.
Sarah felt the bottom of the pond with one foot and kept swimming backward until she felt a broken section of the wooden walkway against her back. Her eyes were open now, fixed on the face of a killer, both of men and every hope and dream she'd ever held for herself.
"You seem disappointed, Sweetling," the man looked down at her with obvious amusement, his posture askance and relaxed as he regarded her in turn as if they were old friends, reacquainted after years apart.
"Were you expecting someone else, I wonder?"
He crouched down beside the pond edge, balancing his elbows on his knees and looked at the water soaked woman who was treading water one-handed, as if examining a strange insect or shiny pebble that he wanted to take home.
Not trusting herself to speak, Sarah shook her head, then grabbed a section of wooden walkway and pulled herself up out of the water, scrambling to get to her feet, so she could properly face her adversary. Soaking wet and shaking, she forced herself to look at the black clad killer squarely in the face.
He was pale - far too pale for a human being. His skin was stretched tightly over too-sharp cheek and brow bones. The pallor of his complexion was further washed out by his jet-black hair that was darker than his macabre armor. Falling down his back in soft waves, it seemed out of place. Save his hair, he was all angles, acute and obtuse, lacking any hint of curves. His nose was aquiline and his lips were thin.
"Still a liar, I see."
The curve of the man's pallid mouth curved into what would have been a winning smile if a long, jagged scar that started above his right eyebrow and ended a little beneath his sharp chin hadn't twisted one side of his lips into something crooked and cruel. It was a deep scar, still red and angry as if it were newly made and it ran through one of his eyes as well, leaving the orb a useless, milky white. His other eye though was inky black, save for the corona of his iris that was a shocking blue.
She remembered his eyes. From before. The blindness and scarring was new. Viciously, she commended whoever it had been who'd managed to cause such hurt and hoped she'd be able to do as good or better.
"Cat got your tongue?" he asked, almost playfully as he turned his attention towards the wet grass beside the ruined pond and a dead young woman in blue. Ignoring Sarah's cry of anger and dismay, he casually used the hem of the dead water nymph's gown to clean the blood off his sword before standing again, then took a step towards where the FBI agent was standing.
Gun up in an instant, Sarah aimed it squarely at his chest, ready to fire if he took one more step.
"Drop the weapon," she inwardly swore as her voice came out as a croak rather than a confident command, "you're under arrest."
The heat of Summer suddenly vanished and charged air around them became brisk and crisp as if they were in late Autumn, weeks past a hard frost. The sudden change in temperature sent shivers through Sarah, who was already wet and chilled. When she took a steadying breath, her exhalation came out in a faint cloud.
"Sarah…my dear Sarah." The serial killer laughed. While his face was badly scarred - a proper fit for the monster she knew him to be, his laugh was obscenely rich and as hot as freshly spilt blood, "you never cease to amuse me with your theatrical antics."
The temperature continued to drop. It now felt like early winter. A sprinkling of snowflakes floated down from a clear summer sky, landing on Sarah's cheeks and nose. Her bare feet prickled with cold as the wet wood she was standing on began to show delicate spirals and jetties of frost patterns on it.
"And if I refuse to do your bidding and lay down my sword, what will you do I wonder?" his smile widened, "will you cry, like you did before? Scream for help?"
The roof of Sarah's mouth felt like icy sandpaper and she reflexively swallowed as waves of deepening cold began to buffet her, trying to moisten her lips, to do anything but gawk at the man she'd been hunting for over a decade. Over the years, she'd rehearsed this moment of finally facing the monster that had taken her family from her, of bringing his many victims a measure of justice. In none of those mental rehearsals had she frozen, in no scenario had she been anything but brave and sure and decisive.
(Robert, there's someone at the door…)
A memory, thick and sticky like a cobweb strung itself in her head, catching her like a spider might a foolish fly.
(Sarah! Take Toby and run!)
Sarah swallowed again as traitorous tears welled up, spilled over the embankment of her frost coated lashes and instantly froze on her cheeks as other faint, muffled sounds and images played at the back of her mind as if from a shaky, ill-kept movie projector. A door splintering, the sounds of her step-mother screaming, her father falling, the taste of blood in her mouth, the sight of Toby being dragged away from her, crying out in pain and fear. Fragmented memories hit her like a tsunami, threatening to pull her under.
"Tell me, sweetest Sarah…" the man's condescending tone was a mockery of concern, "will you beg for your father to come save you? You do remember that night, don't you? How you were powerless to save your family, let alone yourself?"
"Stop it!" Sarah shook her head, trying to rid it of unwanted webs of memory and suffocating fear.
"You're just as helpless now, I assure you," the man in black took a step forward, the words and tone the epitome of malice and cruelty.
"I think not," Sarah hissed, the mere mention of her murdered father was a stinging blow, lacing the infection-like fear in her heart and limbs and replacing it with white hot anger.
Before the killer's foot had fallen, Sarah fired three shots in rapid succession, the cluster pattern tight, just as she'd been taught and had practiced, first as an undergraduate, then through the crucible that was the FBI Academy at Quantico.
The first shot went a little high and tore into the bottom of the man's left shoulder. She heard the sharp pop of a bullet going through armor and the duller sound of splintering bone. The second and third shots were three inches apart, one directly into the center of his chest, the last a little to the left, close to the heart.
The man who had no name that she could remember dropped his sword, then staggered back a little and fell, landing awkwardly on his haunches and looked down at his ruined, apparently useless armor, his expression one of surprise. Blood was freely flowing from the three entry wounds, the one on the left side of his chest an arterial hit that spurt in time with his heartbeat.
"Now, who's helpless, you sick son of a bitch," Sarah growled, leveling her semi-automatic again, this time aiming squarely for the man's head.
Rather than begging for mercy or simply doing Sarah the courtesy of bleeding to death, he muttered a strange word, something caught between a hiss and a whisper and extended a hand towards her, one finger flicking up.
In an instant - faster than Sarah could pull the trigger again, the ice and freezing cold that she'd felt before tore into her, binding her fast in a vice grip, stealing both her ability to move or speak. Her semi-automatic became a block of ice that fell from frozen fingers. The wet, wooden footpath immediately iced over, the broken planks becoming jagged with hoarfrost and icicles. The pond near her also froze clear though, killing the lilies and lotus blossoms and anything swimming beneath the surface instantly. Her lips and the tips of her fingers and toes began to turn blue. Caught in a vortex of ice and snow, a blizzard screaming in her ears, she could only watch the predator come closer.
"That was hardly polite," the black haired chided as he easily got to his feet and picked up his sword from what was left of the wooden walkway. Sarah, half blinded by the blizzard about her, watched in disbelief as the arterial spurts of blood slowed, then stopped all together. His shoulder cracked once, repositioning itself. Even his blood-soaked armor repaired itself. In moments he stood before her, unharmed and hale.
"Now, where were we?" Chuckling, as if greatly amused, he motioned up lightly with one hand, lifting the ice and snow bound woman six inches up into the air, savoring her cry of pain.
"Ahh - yes. I believe we were discussing how helpless you are."
Friday, June 21, 2002
8:36 PM EDT
New York City
Central Park
Delacorte Theater
"We don't have fifteen fuckin' minutes!" Kowalski screamed into his phone at the dispatch center, "you get your asses here now! We've got mass casualties and…" he looked over his shoulder as he ran, a small, seriously injured child secure in his free arm as he sprinted towards the theater proper, hoping to find some decent cover.
Long past caring that the bleeding child had feet like a deer and little horns poking out of a head of blond curly hair, his concern was with what was pursuing them, "...multiple assailants of…of…unknown origins!"
(Unknown origins my ass…)
The thing gaining ground on him was a monster. Plain and simple.
She was shaped like woman, but the familiarity of the fairer sex ended there. Kowalski had seen her take down at least six people, using her freaky, long, green hair to catch them and her long deceptively delicate hands to strangle them. Sometimes, she used her mouth. He shuddered and forced his long legs to move faster. The memory of seeing that woman-thing sucking face with a bike officer and watching the color and life drain from the man's body had been warning enough that the bitch was nothing to mess with.
Hurdling over a turned up section of seating, Kowalski came face to face with the director of the play that should have been presented that evening. He could tell it was the director because the man's face looked mostly the same and he was wearing the radio headset from earlier. The rest of the director looked like a horse from his torso down. A fleeting memory of a Disney movie he'd watched as a kid that had weird horse people and Mickey Mouse making brooms dance filled his mind.
(Jesus H. Christ, I've gone crazy…)
Except that he hadn't.
"Give me the child," the director's voice was gruffer now, more animalistic. He was taller than Kowalski, at least 18 hands high and muscled.
"Take him and get the hell out of here," Kowalski handed the injured boy up to the director, then turned and faced down the woman that was now only twenty feet away and closing fast, "I'll cover you both."
"I will see the boy to safety then return with others," the director's hoofs bit sharply into the green grass. He looked down at the lanky police officer with surprise. Rather than panicking as the veil was lifted, this tall human in shorts who smelled of cigarette smoke was fighting rather than fleeing like most of his kind.
"Whatever, man - just get going!"
Kowalski waited until the green haired woman was within 10 feet of him then opened fire with his Colt.1911, emptying his gun in two seconds flat. The woman was hit multiple times in the chest, abdomen and twice in the head. With an eerie, high pitched screech she flew back several feet from the force of the impact and collapsed onto the grass, face down, her body twitching violently.
"Gotcha," he muttered, ejecting his spent magazine and slapping a new one into the chamber. Thanking his lucky stars that Maurice had been paranoid enough on their return to the city to insist they weapon up, he looked around the theater that had now turned into a field of battle.
The god-ugly big thing that he had no name for was ripping the theater apart, using a row of ripped off seats that was six feet in length. Kowalski swore as he watched three humans and a being that wasn't, get hit with the bastard's improvised weapon. What was left of them flew back at least fifteen - maybe twenty feet, crashing into the trees that surrounded the theater, all broken and bloody.
"Fuck," the profiler crouched down behind a part of the theater seating that was still in-tact and looked around, trying to figure out what in the hell to do. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a dinky little man in a red cap that would have been silly looking had the man not been armed with what looked like some sort of carving knife and was menacing two bike cops with it. They too opened fire and in seconds, the small man was down on his back.
"Atta boys!" Kowalski called out, before looking around for his partner.
"Maurice!" he yelled, looking left and right, only to see his older partner running as fast as he could towards Turtle Pond as several gunshots were fired. Kowalski's eyes tracked the path that the officer was taking and saw Agent Williams fire her weapon into a tall man in black, knocking the asshole on his spindly butt.
(Good on ya kid…) he might not like the FBI agent, but the woman knew how to shoot.
"Three down, one to go, Maurice!" he called out cockily, confident that things were finally on the upswing, then his voice caught in his throat as he watched the black armored man slowly stand up and make a motion with his hands towards the slender agent standing before him.
"Oh, shit!" Kowalski couldn't believe his eyes as the FBI agent was caught up in some sort of cloud of white snow like an invisible fist was squeezing her and the whole fucking pond and everything around it turned to ice.
"Maurice! Hold up!" Kowalski burst out from behind the seating and began racing towards his partner, every gut instinct that he'd earned from years on the force screaming in warning, "Wait for me!"
He'd closed the distance by half when something white hot and searing wrapped around one wrist and a leg. Stumbling, he looked down at his wrist and saw that green, glowing wires were wrapped around his shooting hand, burning into the exposed skin. He screamed as the smell of his own skin burning filled his nostrils, and fell hard on his side.
Grunting as he hit the ground, he clawed at the green wires that were burning him only to realize they weren't wires at all, but hair. Green hair. Rolling onto his back, he looked up into the face of the short woman in an emerald shift that he'd just killed a few moments earlier. She was panting heavily and her red lips were open and expectant, revealing bright green teeth.
'Auggh!" Kowalski screamed, and kicked hard at the woman's mid-section, sending her stumbling back a few feet, enough that her hair hold on him was released. He shot her at her again, but his shooting hand was badly burnt and a few shots went wide. The few that did find their target tore through her slight body, but did not kill her. Her pale white skin shimmered and the massive entry wounds of the 45 caliber hollow point slowly began to close up.
"You ruined my dress," she pouted petulantly, advancing on him with predatory grace, "you'll pay for that." Several locks of her hair lashed out with prehensile accuracy, wrapping around the gun and pulling it out of reach, while other tendrils caught him by the leg and dragged him towards her, "but first, I think a lesson is in order, pathetic human. You seem fond of your comrade."
More tendrils flew out, faster than Kowalski could dodge and in seconds he was pinned, legs, throat and hands bound by the burning strands of hair that left him writhing in agony. "Now watch him die."
"Agent Williams!" Cadet bellowed as he ran as fast as he could towards Turtle Pond. He could see three fatalities already and his new partner was clearly in trouble. Vaguely he heard Kowalski calling his name, but ignored it. There wasn't time for him to wait. Something terrible was happening.
As a child growing up in the Louisiana Bayou, he and his cousins told each other stories at night about a strange, witch-woman who lived in the darkest parts of the swamps. Black Water Annie they called her. An ill-advised expedition into the swamp one night had left Cadet with nightmares for years and a deep appreciation that the world wasn't nearly as simple as one might wish it to be.
"Let her go!" He skidded to a stop, aiming his semi-automatic at the back of a tall man in black who he guessed was the source of what was holding his partner captive.
Nestled in a dream of swirling ice and snow, Sarah stirred. Far past being cold, she felt warm. Sleepy. Content. The voice in her head called her name again, urging her to come and join him, to give into sweet sleep and for the first time in many years, to finally find a measure of rest. She sighed, finally ready to acquiesce to the demands of the voice and her own weariness, when she caught the hint of another voice, barely discernible about the howling wind.
It was the voice of her partner, a good man who, despite being pushed away many times, had still tried to be her friend.
"Agent Williams!"
Maurice screamed her name again, shielding his eyes from the stinging snow, trying to get a good look and see if the FBI agent was even responsive. Her eyes were closed, body limp, motionless in the middle of an impossible winter maelstrom in the middle of summer, save for her now unbound hair whipping violently about her ashen hued face. Her now tattered jacket, trousers and shirt were frozen stiff with ice and sleet. Her lips were blue and her black, long lashes encrusted in ice crystals. An illogical part of his brain offered that she looked like a beautiful sleeping ice princess from fairy tales that he told his grandchildren. The logical part of his mind screamed that she looked dead - that she looked like a corpse on a freezer slab at the coroner's office.
A groan barely escaped Sarah's ice sealed lips as she began to struggle. "No" she gasped as if trying to wake from a nightmare. She tried to blink but her eyes were frozen shut.
"How interesting," the man in black murmured, at once both pleased and slightly perplexed that the human in his thrall was capable of fighting against the spell he'd put her under. Curious, he inhaled sharply and caught a strange undercurrent of magic coming off the woman. Rather than from a bespelled object or incantation, it was coming from within her, buried deeply in her bones and blood.
(Not so human after all…) He'd sensed this magic many years ago when he'd tried to take back what was his and been thwarted at the last possible moment. Knowing that it still existed within this once and future victim was a delicious realization, an unforeseen opportunity at revenge.
"We have much to discuss, Sarah."
Further examination proved impossible as the annoying older human law officer decided to shoot him.
Snarling with fury and no little measure of pain, the man in black whirled around, letting Sarah fall roughly to the ground, though he kept her pinioned, unable to move by the force of his will. He glared balefully at the stocky, dark skinned human wearing a ridiculously colorful flowered shirt. The man looked like a buffoon. Another soft word was uttered, this one more guttural and low, a command.
"Detective Cadet!" Sarah warned as she came to her senses, her teeth still chattering from the cold, "get the hell out of there!" She looked at her friend - yes, dammit, he was her friend, the only one who'd taken the trouble to tolerate her bullshit and offer back a measure of kindness. Sarah screamed out another warning as she saw the troll coming down in long, lumbering strides towards the pond as if it had been called by its master.
"Not gonna happen, Sarah," Detective Cadet said quietly, his own dark eyes tracking the monster as she slid a fresh magazine into his semi-automatic. "I don't leave my partners behind."
"I see you fancy yourself her champion. How quaint."
As his wounds, both internal and external, began to heal, he caught Sarah by her unbound hair and hauled her up until she was kneeling beside him.
"Beg me, and I will spare his life and yours. I give you my word."
Still dazed, Sarah looked up at the man, her head swimming with pain and memory. She'd heard the same promise, thirteen years earlier.
December 21, 1989
(Give me the girl and I will spare your life and that of your son…)
After her father had told her to make a run for it, she'd taken Toby and hidden him in her bedroom closet, stuffing bedding and stuffed animals all around her brother in hopes that he would remain unseen and unheard. For her part, she skittered under her bed and lay still. Unable to find a weapon worth wielding, she tried to remain absolutely silent.
Her father was already dead, she'd heard enough to be sure of that.
Irene was the only adult left in their house and she was hysterical.
(Tell me where the girl is and I swear that I will let you and your child go free. You have my word…) Sarah screwed her eyes shut at the lie she heard in the monster's honeyed voice.
Her step mother began to cry harder, alternating between wailing for her husband and begging for mercy.
( If you want your son to live past this night, give me the girl. She's not of your blood or body, merely a burden born from another woman…)
Irene's wail reached a crescendo, then faltered and in that second, Sarah knew the choice her step-mother had made.
"Sarah!" I'm sorry, but I have no choice!"
Clapping a hand over her mouth so her sobs wouldn't carry, Sarah began to weep, abandoned yet again by the only mother figure she had left.
"She's got to be hiding in her room. It's down the hall, first door on the right! Now, please…" Irene began to cry again, "let me take my son and leave. You promised!"
There was the sound of crashing furniture and an agonized woman's scream that seemed to stretch on for an eternity. Such was the weight of the black clad monster's word.
Present Day..
"Save your breath, Sarah. This dude's full of shit!" Detective Cadet was having none of it. He'd worked too many cases where promises were made by killers and not one had ever been kept.
"Beg me, Sarah…" the man in black pitched his voice into a sickening mockery of a croon, "You can end this suffering with just a word," fisting her hair, he pulled, forcing her to look up at him like a supplicant.
She turned her head to the side, ignoring the pulling of her hair, so she could make eye contact with Cadet. Her green eyes met his dark brown ones. Her partner had such kind eyes, even after a life of hunting down monsters like the one who held her life in his hands.
A hundred words, apologies and regrets passed between them in a second.
Cadet nodded and brought his semi-automatic up to bear. Sarah nodded in return and gave him a sad smile, before turning her attention to the man in black.
"Go fuck yourself," she said, all the hate in the world balled up into three little words, "you're going to kill us both. I know how you operate."
The man in black laughed, his smile now manic, "do you now?"
Detective Cadet began to shoot at the troll. The beast roared in pain, but shook off the gunshot wounds as Sarah feared it would, and continued to lumber towards the stocky detective.
She swallowed, her throat dry. This was the endgame and the object wasn't to survive, it was to draw out as much time as possible for the NYPD to arrive and give innocent people an opportunity to escape both the man in black and the troll who had killed so many of them. This was also a tactic that she'd trained for as an FBI agent, a play of last resort, a game she was determined to play well.
Sarah gave the man who'd pinned her by his side a withering look, then spoke, her voice dripping with pure condescension.
"You're nothing special, just a pathetic man with an overblown ego who was abandoned by his father at a young age."
Sarah continued without pity, pouring as much scorn as she could into each barbed word that left her mouth. While she had many faults, her ability to create a dead to rights criminal psychological profile wasn't one of them.
"You tortured and killed animals as a child to compensate for the loss and to try and garner the attention of your one remaining parent," Eyes blazing hot with defiance, she glared up at the monster she'd spent her adult life tracking down, "it didn't work. Your mother rejected you, probably in favor of another sibling, one who I have no doubt you terrorized."
With a snarl, the man in black backhanded Sarah with enough force to split her lip down the middle. He hit her again, snapping her head back and sending her sprawling to the wreckage of the wooden walkway.
His second magazine spent, Cadet slipped his third and final one into the gun and took aim at the beast that was nearly twice his height.
(I am going to die…) he acknowledged to himself in between shots as he retreated towards a broken stone bridge where a young woman and an elderly couple already lay dead. He thought of his sweetheart of forty years, of his children and grandchildren that would never see him come home. Trying to make each and every last shot count, he aimed carefully for the monster's face, hoping to blind or at least incapacitate in some small way and give people more time to escape.
He fired his fourth shot, and it grazed the temple of the mottled, gray skinned creature. The fifth shot took out a black beady eye. For a second, the troll roared and staggered in pain, clutching at the gaping hole where its eye had been, then a minute later straightened up, the bullet wound closing up. The monster roared at him and then began to lope forward, its massive knuckles dragging on the ground as it picked up speed.
Sarah coughed raggedly, her mouth tasting of coppery blood. She heard another gunshot and saw the troll take a swipe at her partner. It was a hideous game of cat and mouse with only one outcome.
The unfairness of it all made her furious and spiteful and she glared up at the man in black, unaware that her expression was nearly as cold and cruel as his.
"You wet the bed as a child" she taunted, savoring the look of shock and a fleeting shadow of embarrassment on the man's face, "and you struggle to maintain an erection when it matters most." She laughed mockingly even as blood ran in rivulets down her mouth and chin. "I know you better than you know yourself."
Maurice was now within earshot of Agent Williams and to his surprise and then dark amusement, he could hear the woman ripping the serial killer a new asshole, savaging the bastard as best she knew how. He laughed, despite his time on earth being nearly over, a warm, life-affirming laugh when she archly declared the monster an impotent bed-wetter and told him he had mommy issues.
(That's it, Partner…give him hell…)
He fired his seventh and then eighth shot, as he intentionally retreated away from the theater, trying to buy the evacuees as much time as he could. Sarah, he knew, was doing the same thing in her own acerbic way.
"Sarah, I'm sorry that I told Kowalski," he called out in farewell, his low voice cracking a little with emotion as he barely missed a crushing blow from the troll that had already taken out scores of innocent bystanders, "but the poor bastard needs all the breaks he can get. Promise me that you'll keep an eye out for him."
Sarah closed her eyes when Cadet's final shot rang out, her eyes filling up with tears. There was the answering roar of a troll and then a few seconds later, the sound of a man screaming out in pain and a sickening, crunching sound.
Then there was silence.
"No, you're nothing special at all," she repeated between clenched teeth, tears running down both cheeks as she glanced over to where her partner was laying, half hidden beneath an oak tree. Sarah groaned when another blow knocked her to her side, clutching at ribs that were at best badly bruised and most likely broken, "I knew when and where you would strike tonight and I was right. I can track you like the animal you are."
"Once again, you are lying to me, Sarah," the tall man snarled as he kicked her in the stomach, relishing the sound of the air being knocked out of her. Inwardly, however, there was a filament of worry in the back of his mind. Before emerging from the veil of the Otherworld, he'd heard the bitch speaking to the empty-headed nymph about tracking him to the park. "When this is over and you've given me the answers I need, I look forward to peeling your tongue from your throat."
Summoning up every last vestige of strength, Sarah staggered up into a half standing position, and gave the man who'd killed her family a scornful smile, defiant and triumphant even in the face a death that would come in seconds, rather than minutes, "The good man you just killed, he and his partner alerted the authorities that you were coming and every goddamn officer and unit in this city is on its way and will slaughter you and your freaks. You'll be outnumbered a hundred to one."
"Then I had better attend to the business at hand," for a moment, the man's mask of composure fractured, revealing something bestial beneath. His voice was no longer soft, but labored and rough, as if he was struggling terribly to stay in control, "but know this, Poppet," he hissed the word against Sarah's ear, flicking foamy spittle on her cheek, "I'm coming back for you."
He spoke another word, one of hate and malice that bound and broke and left Sarah shrieking in pain, unable to stand or move. Turning sharply on his heel, motioning for the troll to follow him like a hellish pet, the man in black called out to his companions who were wreaking havoc all around the theater, "Find the boy and bring him to me!"
Unable to stop the bastard from leaving, Sarah writhed on the half-sunk wooden walkway, eyes wide and mouth gaping open in agony. She'd felt this pain before and it had been dealt by the same man. Her mind was not spared from her torment, replaying the night her world had been turned upside down in a merciless loop that began to eat away at her sanity.
Convulsing from a sort of anguish that there were no words to describe, she felt herself slipping head first off the torn apart wooden boards and into the pond, now no longer frozen. Desperate, she tried to catch hold of something…anything…to keep her from going into the water, but her limbs were still bound in invisible bonds by whatever cruelty the man in black had cast upon her. With a strangled cry, she slid into the cold, murky water and disappeared from view.
Trying not to scream and fill her lungs with water, Sarah bit down on her lower lip savagely, her teeth tearing tender skin. She bucked and tried to twist in the water, trying to get her head up but it was to no avail. She was sinking to the bottom of the pond, doomed to join the other dead plants and flash-frozen animals.
A vicious ripple of pain impaled her, the shock and severity so great that she was unable to stop herself from screaming. Air bubbles escaped her badly bleeding mouth and floated up gently towards the surface of the pond. Her body shuddered and she snapped her mouth shut before water could race in and finish her off. Cold and afraid, she looked up at the surface a few feet above her head, an eternity away.
(Help me…)
It was a silent cry, wordless in the cold, muddy water.
Sarah tried to hold her breath, but her lungs, already badly bruised, were burning from a lack of oxygen,
(Please…help me…)
Long past the point in her life where she bothered praying, it was still an instinctual plea to the universe at large and even in the darkness of places as her body shook and her mouth opened of its own accord to draw in breath that wasn't there, there was a place in the universe that answered.
In the next chapter…
"It had been three days since the Great Law had been broken and not a word, not a blasted whisper of news had come to him from the outside realms of the Otherworld. While the passage of time varied greatly from one kingdom to the next, to say nothing of the human world, he should have heard something by now, Goblin neutrality be damned.
Jareth mulishly drank his wine and pondered what the ponderous silence could mean. It was as if the entirety of the Otherworld was poised on a knife's edge, holding its collective breath, each selfish faction waiting to see what the other would do.
(I'm half tempted to make the first move…) "
Author's Notes
Oh, my goodness! Thank you for taking the time to read, follow and review this story. It's been years since I tried to write, especially now that I am on medication that unfortunately can hamper the creative process in my mind. I feel wobbly and still uncertain and am trying to lock down the voices of the characters, but I'll do my best very best!
Your reviews and reading mean the world to me. Thank you.
Some things from this chapter -
It's important to remember that time passes differently in the Otherworld and the Human Realm. It can be early in the evening in New York City and late at night in the Goblin Kingdom at exactly the same time. Days or weeks in the Otherworld can also take place over the space of a few hours or minutes among humans. Time is subjective, not a fixed constant. "People assume that time is a strict progression from cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff." That's the Doctor's infamous explanation for what makes time travel possible.
Nope, the Serial Killer is not Jareth. I can say, however, with confidence that they are not strangers. More on that in a few chapters. ;)
As a criminal profiler, Sarah tries to create a portrait of the serial killer to understand motivations and to try and glean where and how a killer will strike again. When she was telling him about behaviors and trauma he exhibited as a child and also as an adult, she is vaguely referencing something called the Macdonald Triad, which is a theory that gained momentum when researcher and psychiatrist J.M. Macdonald published a controversial review that suggested a link between certain childhood behaviors and traumas and a tendency toward violence in adulthood. This is NOT to say that anyone who has had trauma, wet the bed or has had a parent abandon them is going to be a violent adult. If that was the case, most of us, including myself, would be in serious trouble!
Attack Chickens are a thing. So is Jareth sleeping in the buff. Le sigh.
In this universe, I call beings like Jareth, The Man in Black, the troll and the other creatures (a red cap from Celtic mythology and Jenny Green Teeth) denizens of the "Otherworld". Its catch-all name for a multi-dimensional space of many kingdoms, of which Jareth's is one. They are intentionally separate from the human world, but some cross-over does occur, but there are strict rules. The Man in Black is clearly a rule breaker.
In this universe, immortal beings have weaknesses, just like humans do. The big one for most Otherworlders is going to be Iron. This is why the bullets fired hurt them, but do not kill them. Standard issue ballistic bullets are made of a lead-antimony alloy encased in a soft brass casing. There are other types of bullets that have steel components and would be more destructive. More on that later.
If you have any questions, leave a review and I'll do my best to respond and answer them.
Thank you again, and happy reading!
