Chapter 3 – Sweet Dreams.
After Elyria's exit, Todd looks at the list she gave him. There are a good few hundred names on the list, and Todd's eyebrows shoot up in shock. What a list it is. He rubs his stubbly chin with a rough hand, and sits down on the chest to think. He gazes out of the window at the starry night and taps his foot, thinking. How can this woman be real? She has too ethereal a beauty, too wise a manner for a human. And she definitely is not something from Hell, he concludes. Probably just a deluded woman with knowledge of cheap magic tricks who'd smoked too much opium and was now paying the price. He gets up and goes to his bed, lying down to sleep after his long day.
In his dreams, he is with Lucy and Johanna. They are having a walk in the park when a dark cloud overshadows them. Johanna cries, and as Todd tries to comfort her the shadow plucks him from the ground and swallows him whole. Inside the cloud he screams, cries like a baby, begs for his life, but the cloud will not release him. Then, from nowhere, comes a voice.
"Barker… you will do your duty. In London town, the rivers will run red with your wrath!"
"But… But… I cannot kill!"
"Well, we all know that isn't true!" Elyria glides up to him, beautiful as ever, her eyes still hidden from view. "I still smell the blood on your hands from today's murderous gains." She smiles slightly, and her incisors seem to be slightly pointed. Todd has heard about this phenomenon before, and he whispers the word under his breath.
"Vampire."
"Yes darlin'. I'm sorry, but if you didn't put it together yourself… Besides. I'm no ordinary vampire. I'm magic."
"Leave me be! I have no interest in vampires or magic or assassinations… just leave me!" There is a deep rumbling laugh from somewhere inside the shadow, menacing and strange, and so it speaks again.
"Very well. My Lady, do as you will." Elyria hesitates, watches the cloud disappear from the air and pulls one of her gloves off. Very gently, she skims Todd's skin with a finger and he screams, falling back from her. She puts a finger to her lips and slowly fades away.
Todd jolts awake, all caught up in his blankets. He rolls out of bed and stamps his foot. It is still night, and he says clearly,
"Elyria! I demand to see you!" He waits a few moments, and he hears her voice, a strange mixture between upper class and working class dialects;
"You called?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. I just had the strangest dream and I want you to tell me what it meant!" He claps his hands together and yelps in pain. He wonders, has he hurt his hand during the night's tossing and turning? But closer inspection of the strange mark on his hand reveals it to be a burn in the shape of a finger. A long finger. He swings round and looks at her.
"You! You were in my dream!"
"No, I wasn't. My Master pulled you out of your dreams. He was just… ensuring you got the job done." She pulls at her gloves, masking her appendages from the fingertip to the wrist.
"Your Master? The shadow?"
"Yes. Although, he isn't always a shadow. He often appears as a human actually. Suited and booted, nice top-hat… you've probably seen him around. He speaks highly of you, you know."
"I don't care – he's the Devil!"
"I don't deny that. But if you got to know him, you'd find him rather intriguing I'm sure…"
"How do you know him?!" Elyria seems momentarily stunned by Todd's anger, but then recovers herself.
"I'm a loyal servant to His Infernal Majesty."
"We both know that isn't true… you're just a cheap trickster, one not unlike those you see in a travelling circus!"
"Then how do you think I got here so fast?"
"You were under the stairs. I'm not stupid."
"I never said you were stupid. I just noticed that you seem to edit what you see to fit the way you wish to see the world. To find the justice you seem to believe exists. So I questioned you."
Todd steps away from her and points at his door. He seems too angry to speak to her, and she makes no movement.
"I was scaring you, you realise. Look." She smiles, and her teeth are perfectly normal. She taps them to demonstrate and Todd raises an eyebrow. "What will it take for you to trust me? It will be easier for the both of us if you do." A beat passes.
"Your eyes."
"What?"
"I want to see your eyes." Elyria's cheeks pale even more at his request, but her hands move up to her hood.
"You realise that once something is seen, it cannot be unseen?" Todd merely nods, and she slides back the hood. He looks into her eyes and sees how deep they truly are. He shudders slightly at their coldness, and the longer he maintains their gaze the further into despair he plunges. She breaks the stare, and pulls the hood back over her golden hair. "Do not ask again, Barker."
To break the tense atmosphere the revelation has created, Elyria paces around the attic, her steps silent on the creaky floorboards. She runs a gloved finger over the back of Todd's torturous chair and swings it around so that she might sit in it.
"Would you put me in a pie, Barker?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Your pies that you make with that vile lady downstairs; Mrs Lovatt, isn't it. Would you put me in one?"
"If I knew you could die, I'm sure I would try to."
"Why? Do I threaten you?" She spins herself about on the chair, creating a swirl of black skirts and shadow, as Todd tries to think of how to respond. Her presence does terrify him, but on the same token he has become strangely comfortable with her random appearances in his home. Todd, smelling smoke, turns back to the chair fearing a fire and looks for a water jug, but when he looks back at the chair it is spinning alone.