London was muted in a mist of rain, not really enough for a drizzle, but a mist that cast a soft blur over the city. A young woman walked through the streets of an exclusive neighborhood. She drew attention, not simply for her regal bearing, but her unusual beauty. She was a rare beauty in these environs, a true exotic. Her skin was the color of caramel and her cheekbones elegant, her golden eyes were tilted like a cat's. The was something feline about her presence and carriage, infinitely graceful and effortlessly predatory. She stopped in front of an imposing townhouse, regarding each window, as she absently twirled her parapluie, that being a fashionable word for an umbrella. The young woman was nothing if not fashionable, as evidenced by her afternoon ensemble designed by the House of Worth.
Sir Malcolm rose from his desk. He didn't know why he still bothered to pore over maps of Africa. His dream of finding the true source of the Nile was gone. His heart had fractured more at the second loss of darling Mina. Destroyed by his own hand. Malcolm hoped she had gone to a better place, but one didn't really know about these things. He didn't know why he was drawn to that particular sitting room, nor why he felt compelled to look out the window. He pushed back the curtains and locked his sight into the view of a young woman whose gaze was aimed like a rifle at him. Sir Malcolm felt the look almost like a physical blow.
Thirty-five years earlier.
Captain Malcolm Murray sweated in the Indian heat under his red tunic. The betting was still furious as to how many pigeons the cat would take down. It had amused him to bet on an even dozen. Was he concerned as to the outcome. He could afford to loose, but he wanted to win. Malcolm always wanted to win.
The cat was brought out, a medium sized wildcat with graceful black tufted ears in contrast to the rest of its golden body. Its face was dramatically marked with accents of black and white almost like the mask of a courtesan.
The caracal charged into the flock of pigeons, in a swirl of feathers and fur, the cat leapt almost ten feet into the air, the elegant, lethally tipped paws slashing through the birds. Twelve pigeons fell to earth.
Malcolm had won the wager.
The cat's green eyes met Malcolm's green eyes in salute, or perhaps, challenge. He wasn't sure. He nodded in return.
A voice behind him said, "Of course the cat is female. Murray almost always does well with women."
Malcolm turned to his fellow officer and smiled. "Murray always does well with women," he replied.
Vanessa lay in bed in that frontier between waking and sleep. She held up a slender arm and regarded her hand; how translucent her fingers looked as the morning light seeped through them. She had dreamt of Malcolm, not the stern, older man with whom she lived, Sir Malcolm.
She dreamt of Malcolm before he become Sir Malcolm.
She had seen a young army officer in the hypnotic, colorful, and baffling place that was India. His green eyes startling against tanned skin and his red uniform coat. He didn't always wear the uniform — but the bold, hungry green eyes were there to devour everything they could. Maybe it was the explorer in him. He wanted to see, to know, to dominate. Malcolm was a man of empire. He was both ridiculous and dangerous.
In Vanessa's dream she saw Malcolm watching an elaborate dance. His stare intensified and his breath quickened. She doubted he grasped the spirituality of the piece; he seemed to grasp it on a more primal level. In India dance is expression of cosmic life, a means of entering into divine consciousness. Malcolm watched the dance tell the tale of Kali, the Dark Mother.
Kali means black, the first creation before the coming of light itself. She is the Black One, who is beyond time. Her name, Kali, means "time" or "death". Her hair, more black than the starless night, flails about her in wild abandon, her skin is deep blue. She is girdled only in the arms of dead men, adorned with a necklace of skulls, and dead bodies decorate her ears. Besmeared with blood, her red eyes glaring, she begins her killing spree in her battle with evil forces. Uninhibited, Kali destroys everything she can. Lord Shiva, her consort, throws himself under her feet. Her foot is pressed upon his chest. Her red eyes widen shocked at the destruction she's wrought, Kali's tongue protrudes in astonishment.
So the goddess danced in Vanessa's dream, in one of Kali's arms see holds a sword, in another she brandishes a head.
The head was Vanessa's own.
