Dark Lady
By Iain R. Lewis
Disclaimer: A bit late, but a Halloween story about betrayal and hatred. Cher is involved, unsurprisingly. But I am…definitely not that old, so I'm not her. And I'm also not DC. Curses.
Dark Lady laughed and danced and lit the candles one by one
Danced to her Gypsy music 'til her brew was done
Starfire had urged her to play along, so she had finally given up resistance and set up the materials. Tarot readings and Hypnotism weren't easy tasks, but Starfire was curious, so she decided to lend a bit of her mystical charms to the art.
"Let us play games and mysteries of the occult variety!" she had urged, and Raven just shrugged. The occult wasn't to be trifled with because what few of it really existed shouldn't be toyed or tampered with.
Still, a past regression isn't likely to cause any harm.
As they finished their readings, Raven shuffled the cards with an expert touch and placed them in their case, their strange renderings face down, never to lie again.
"Are you sure about this?" Raven asked. "I'm not responsible for what you learn about yourself through this. As far as I know, you were a super-villain and when you wake up…" she trailed off. Starfire's smile had not flickered. "Okay. Let's begin."
With a wave of her hand, she brought a chair for Starfire to sit in. She seemed to dance as she lit the candles one by one. And she lit some incense for the sake of her focus. She muttered her magic words and sat down in front of Starfire.
"I am ready," she whispered, sounding like a child about to take the cookies from the cookie jar before dinner.
"Close your eyes, and listen to my voice," Raven said, her eyes closed. "And let yourself go far, far away to a place you've never been."
New Orleans , 1926.
The economic boon of the Twenties reverberated through the beautiful Louisiana landscape. And at its center was the Jazz filled streets of New Orleans , like a small bastion of French grace in the powerful and strange United States .
As a young girl, Kory hadn't been there for too long. Leaving New York had been enough for her, and the strangeness of the Southern Belle city was overwhelming. The only solace she had was in the boy whose hand she held. Richard smiled comfortingly to her as they walked across the street, while dark cars passed every once and a while. Prohibition made Chicago a dangerous place. So it was all around the States, even fair New Orleans .
"Perhaps we should go inside," Kory said, at the arrival of a dark car. Richard petted her hair gently and soothingly.
"It's nothing to be afraid of," Richard told her. The limousine passed by them, slowing down only a second, but the windows were so dark that it seemed even deadly as it passed, reflecting the streets as it did.
"It's so strange," she said.
"I know," Richard said. "Come along."
The dined in a café, with a dark coffee drink reaching Richard's lips while she watched, her food having been dimmed by the confusion by the approaching Hallow's Eve. It was also more than that. Recently, she had a suspicion playing in her mind and she wanted some sort of resolve. For the past few weeks she had noticed that another woman's perfume lingered on Richard's sleeves, and she may not have any evidence, the suspicion kept playing in her brain.
That infernal perfume.
"Are you true?" she asked him, suddenly. He didn't seem to be phased. He put his coffee down and smiled.
"Yes," he answered, simply. It should have been enough, but still, it wasn't. There was a speck of suspicion lingering.
Perhaps that lingering suspicion was because of the looming shadows of night. She rose from her seat, "Perhaps I'd best go home. It's getting late." Richard rose as well.
"I'll walk you."
"No, no," Kory said. She looked at her love with a feeling of despair. "It's no more than five minutes away. You should hurry along home, as well." The gloom of Halloween would soon set into the bright lights of New Orleans .
She sent one last fleeting glimpse to Richard, before she looked into the strange, ebony car that was parked outside her apartment. It was the same one from before, the one that looked like the devil's car itself.
And as she stepped to her door, the car's door opened, and a dark voice said, "Miss Anderson, if you would." The woman inside was stroking a black cat as it yawned and fussed over the attention.
The girl's finger waved her closer and she sat down on the scratched seat of the car. She closed the door, and the dark lady merely said, "Home James." The car took off down the street.
"Who are you?"
"They call me the Black Bird," she said, "Others call me the Dark Lady. You can choose." She seemed familiar, with her dark, sunken eyes and sharp chin, but the skin was dark as a Gypsy's. "I've been foretold that you require my assistance."
Kory's frown lingered. "What sort of assistance."
"Your fortune, I can tell you anything past, present, or future that you would ever want to know – and even more that you wouldn't." The woman's strange scent permeated the air, and the cat's mewing took Kory's concentration away.
"A fortune," she said. "Where are we going?"
"My home," she said. Judging from her fine dress, and the custom car, she was certainly wealthy. And they soon pulled into the drive of a luxurious mansion that sat in the rich part of town. The chauffeur opened the door and Kory slowly exited the vehicle. The Dark Lady followed.
"Come with me," she said. The building's halls winded to a darkened room with unlit candles and a crystal ball on a small table. She sat herself down and the Dark Lady held out her hand.
Kory looked through her purse and found a small amount of money. The Dark Lady smiled and took the money. She danced through the room, lighting the candles one by one. Strange gypsy music played on her victrola. She clapped in time with the music, and as one by one the amount of candles left unlit dwindled, the light in the room seemed only to grow darker.
Each shadow cast by the flickering flame canceled out the light from the next, its perfect arrangement let the world twist and turn round that single, horrifying glass ball. It stared at everything with the vague horror of an insane mind.
Kory could not bear to look, and closed her eyes.
Then there was the sound of shuffling cards. "Let's begin," she said. Kory opened her eyes. The Crystal Ball was gone, and the woman had taken its place, her dark eyes boring straight into her soul. While she chanted her strange words, she turned two cards.
A Queen and a three.
"What does it mean?" Kory questioned. She was shushed harshly by the woman, who only continued to turn over another card. A two-eyed Jack.
And while it was black, she saw a moment of red. And she looked at the dull face of the Dark Lady. The exotic nature of her beauty enticed. The scratches in the car – perhaps they were of men that she treated like cats, as prizes for her enjoyment.
"Aha," she said, "You are in love, are you not?" Kory dumbly nodded. "And he is a handsome man, with dark hair and a mysterious demeanor that you find irresistible."
She stared, she had described Richard. She felt her hands being taken by the Dark Lady, who moved close, and whispered into her ear, "He is secretly true to someone who is very close to you."
The overpowering odor of the woman's perfume forced Kory to move back. "What should I do?"
"Leave this place," she said, "And never return. Forget you ever saw my face."
Kory rose to her feet and with the look of a rabbit in the headlights, she left the darkened room in a panic only heightened by the Dark Lady's laugh.
It wasn't until she got home and had pulled her covers over her head for a sleepless night that Kory had realized something was amiss. She remembered that strange gypsy scent that had been anointed on the Dark Lady liberally.
And she recognized it from this very room. So, Kory got herself dressed and headed out into the night of New Orleans, fearing for her life, but even more suspicious of the strange woman that had taken her to read her fortune.
She burst through the front door, there were noises playing in the creaking shadows as she crawled through the building, uninvited, but with the doors unlocked the Dark Lady invited trouble.
She could feel the cold object in her pocket urge her to use it and to take it in her hands.
And yet she didn't want to remember why she brought such a thing with her on a trip such as this, this strange bit of suspicious following of a dark woman and her strange habits.
Perhaps she was right, perhaps someone close to her, someone important to her. But she had no such connections in the city.
And then she remembered what the woman had said. "Very close". She had said it mere centimeters from her ear.
Her suspicions were confirmed when she threw open the door to the dark room and saw Richard kiss the Dark Lady.
The Dark Lady's laughter deafened them to her approach. The click of the safety however was not so dull, and they stopped and saw her there. It only took two shots from the gun to leave them laying helpless on the ground, blood pouring out from the wound.
And Kory didn't seem to care. The Dark Lady would never turn a card up again.
Starfire was pulled from her dream-state by Raven's clap. She sat up, looked around, and held her hand to her bosom as her breath became rapid. She remembered every inch of the story and every ounce of blood that fell to the floor from her unfaithful lover's wound.
"Starfire?" Raven asked, looking a bit perplexed. "Did it work?"
"Oh! Friend Raven! It was horrid!" she said, hugging the dark girl with every muscle in her body.
"I can't breathe," Raven warned, quietly. "Please, Starfire, calm down."
"I dreamed of a horrible dark lady! Was that really what I was like in the past?" Raven shrugged, trying to push Starfire off of her. She could hear the sniffing of Starfire's nostrils. They seemed deliberate and searching now.
"There's no evidence to say you really experience a past life, Starfire, the memories could have been formed by anything in your brain and given a new form." The sniffing stopped and Starfire pulled away.
"That perfume, it is new?" she asked, quietly.
"Uh, yes," Raven answered, quietly. "Are you feeling better, now, Starfire?"
"Yes, uh, yes I am very much better now!" she said, rising to her feet. Her glance remained firmly on the dark girl. "A great deal of concern has been lifted. Thank you, Raven."
The glow on Starfire's fingernails did not go unnoticed by Raven.
fin