Hullo dear ones.

I presume I find you all in excellent health?

Marvellous.

You'll be, of course, thrilled by the (comparatively,) expeditious update?

Surely, surely. Lol.

Now, do me a favour, and (after you finish reviewing this chapter, of course,) check out the – bulletin – I just posted on my profile page. It may concern some of this story's readers.

(Miranda Priestly's voice:) . . .That's all.

-19) Curtain Call

Murmurs.

Like birds.

Like the brush of their wings.

Feathered wings.

Only little.

Little murmurs.

. . . Not unpleasant. Pleasant really. Quite. Quite pleasant. Like floating. Floating floating floating . . .

The nice floating bubble feeling was crudely interrupted. The fluttery murmuring broke off into definite yelling. I whimpered, and cringed away from the rough noise, which itself broke off abruptly at my reaction.

There was an aching pressure being applied to both sides of my head, pressing tightly, tightly, too tightly! It hurt – it was about here that I realised the pressure was of my own making, my hands pressing themselves tightly over my ears in my own effort to rediscover the safe murmurs.

I ceased the pressure.

Feeling gradually came back into my limbs (I could feel my hands, my legs, the rough denim of my shorts – now dry,) enough for me to wish more fervently that it hadn't; as with this realisation, came full recollection.

Fucking hell.

Obstinately, I let myself hope that my situation had improved, and stubbornly, I kept my eyes pressed tightly shut out of unwillingness to dispel my new little illusion.

Eventually I had to admit to myself that I could still feel that fucking concrete. And each breath I drew was laboured and heavy – the result of stale, cold air.

A random thought struck me then. Could this room be . . . UNDERGROUND?

But there's a window in the roof – does that mean to say that the ROOF is GROUND level?

THAT'S FU—

Hands grabbed the top of my arms in a very familiar manner, and like a small child who'd been naughty, I was hauled into an upright position. The spinning of my head accelerated to a nauseating pace, and I retched, tasting bile.

Reluctantly, I swallowed. My body was then roughly shaken, and of a will I'm not entirely convinced was my own, my eyelids were prised open.

It was all too bright.

Like the exposure of the world had been turned to a ridiculously high setting.

I reeled back, squinting, and may have fallen again, if I hadn't been caught, and wrapped in a bone-crushing hug.

I cried out, as Stacy's body—insignificant to anyone but me—made contact with the damage to my abdomen that was the result of Stacy's own crackpot mother, and rubbed the raw mess. I groaned, and hunched my shoulders in an almost feral posture of self-protection.

Lisa's promise of "stings" was more than apt.

"What?" Stacy's voice fluttered. "Oh, I . . ." her voice broke to a whisper, " . . . forgot. "

Yeah. Me too.

Shame how long that lasted.

"I'm" I rasped, and surprised myself at how unintelligible my voice was, "Fine."

She didn't look at all reassured, if anything, the panic over her glowing features heightened, and I realised that she couldn't distinguish my shitty attempt at speech any better that I could.

So placing a (somewhat shaky, it's true,) hand upon her shoulder in an attempt to steady myself, I looked directly into her wide blue eyes and gave raised my left hand in a shaky thumbs up.

That was enough for her. Her eyes flooded with the ghost of tears (now THERES some irony)– and I belatedly realised that I too was crying. And had been for some time. Which tripped me out. I felt light-headed, and I wondered if I had been used as an experimental drug guinea pig while I was out.

I wasn't ruling that out just yet.

However, as Stacy's shoulders shook harder and harder, it dawned on me that she was not in fact crying. But laughing.

I couldn't repress a sliver of bad will at that. I, for one, failed to see the humour.

I attempted to disregard all of this, and try and figure out . . . well. Try and figure out what the hell really. Once I forced my eyes to adjust to the fluoro colours I'd been seeing, I ascertained that I was still in the blasted concrete room.

So definitely no improvement there.

Also, I saw a hulking shadow in one of the back corners of the room. "Umm . . . Stace?"

. . . I sounded like a Chihuahua yelping.

She turned to look at me.

I made my arm point at the back left corner, where Lisa was huddled behind the battery fan, unconscious, from what I could surmise, but with a regular breathing pattern.

Stacy's face twisted into a forced grin. Which I found strange, but whatevs. "Yeah. Your boy Nick knocked her out. Punched her, he did."

I gasped. "Nick? Nick was here? NO! He can't be! He has to get away—" I was getting hysterical, and accidentally I hiccoughed, which clawed at my tummy like you wouldn't BELIEVE. I moaned, and curled over.

Stacy patted me on the back. I knew she meant it as a symbol of solidarity, but it literally did not help me. At all.

"Anyway. Nick's gone now. And I promised that I'd look after Lisa while he's chasing Keith around Shadowland." She grinned viciously.

I painstakingly hauled myself to my feet, and said to her, "Come on. We have to go. Leave her here." My lip curled as I looked at the reason for my current misfortune, heaped against the wall.

What I wouldn't give to smack her honey blonde highlighted hair into this concrete floor again and again and again . . .

I made so as to use Stacy's arm as a crutch and turned to leave through that blessedly still open door.

Seems, Lisa, you arrogant bitch you should have shut and locked the door after all. You were so busy rubbing it in my face that I couldn't save myself, couldn't get out, you entirely forgot to accommodate the fun little fact that someone ELSE could save me. Someone ELSE could get me out.

Things were looking up for team Melinda!!!

FUCK team whacko.

My internal mirth was halted when I noticed that Stacy had not moved to the door with me. I turned back to look at her enquiringly.

"I don't think so Melinda."

…I-don't-think-so Tim. JUST like Tool Time.

FOCUS, MELINDA.

". . . What?"

Stacy looked me in the eyes and said with a voice completely devoid of all infliction. "I won't ever leave her, Melinda. Ever. Not ever."

It took me a second to realise she was talking about Lisa.

I stared down at the sprawled form of the woman who was a sadistic torturer, but also the mother of the ghost in front of me. I tried to consider this, but all I could remember was that Lisa was in cohorts with the party responsible for her daughters brutal death. A death that I couldn't help but suspect Lisa had known about. Maybe not just known about, but—

Well, Keith's hardly the mastermind type, is he!? He's muscles without a conscience. Lisa told him to beat up me, he did. Lisa told him to murder Brian in the catholic school gardens, he did. Lisa told him to attract press by murdering Alanna and Daniel in my living room. HE DID.

SO wouldn't it be true to say . . .

But WHY? WHY would Lisa want her own daughter dead?

I don't understand. And I didn't think that answers would be forthcoming. Lisa said she wanted me to die cold and alone, and not knowing why – not to mention riddled with holes from the love of my life's own knife.

So I looked at Lisa with none of the compassion of her Daughter's eyes. All I could feel was a vicious, clawing hate. A desire to cause her as much pain as she had MY family . . .

I could help but thrill at such an intoxicating idea . . . My upper lip curled, but I turned back to face Stacy and forced a casual shrug. "It doesn't matter. We'll lock her in here."

See how she likes it.

I was all for filling a paddling pool with ice cubes, and chucking her in that too. Perhaps I might even go as far as to STAB THE BITCH A COUPLE TIMES.

Stacy stood with her ballet-slippered feet firmly planted. She sneered at me, and I blinked in surprise. "You don't get it, do you?" Stacy asked me. "She is my EVERYTHING. For her, I do ANYTHING."

"Stacy . . ." I whispered. "What are you—"

She cut me off with a wave of her hand. "It's funny, how things work out, don't you think Melinda? It is FUNNY." Stacy went and sat in the wooden chair, and then leaned back, throwing her hands up behind her head. "I've killed quite a few people now. All for her. For us! So we could finally be together."

I blinked, my head still a little foggy.

What . . .

"Stacy," I said slowly and carefully, "You're her daughter, you WERE together . . ."

Stacy rolled her head to look at me, and my words froze in my throat. "No. Melinda. No. Lisa didn't used to be with me. Not really. She'd kiss me, and then have to go back. She'd touch me," here her mouth screwed up at the corner, "and have to go back--"

What the HELL?

". . . INCEST, much?"

She carried on like she hadn't heard me. And I don't know. She probably hadn't. Her eyes were alight with a strange fervour, and suddenly she was screaming. "Then she went BACK TO HER DAUGHTER!!!" Stacy's brown eyes turned to meet mine, and I saw nothing but focused fury there, thinly veiled by a mocking calm. "You see, Melinda, princess, Lisa and I could only be together if Stacy . . .well, if Stacy wasn't. Get it?"

And I did.

I did.

I sucked in a horrified breath and stared at "Stacy" in dumb horror.

"Lisa didn't want me to tell you any of this, princess," Keith drawled, stretching his legs. "She wanted you to die all alone, screaming why, yadda yadda. But I dunno. I reckon it's more fun this way. And I've got some minutes to spare before my Angel comes back to us." Keith's unmistakable chuckle rang out through the room, echoing off the concrete walls. "So it's storytime! Any questions to open the floor!?"

"Where," my voice shook with suppressed anger. "Is Stacy?"

"DEAD, princess!" Keith exclaimed like I was retarded. "Weren't you listening? Oh, you mean the ghost?"

"The. Ghost."

"Oh. Yeah. I'm not sure." Stacy's own shoulders shrugged carelessly. "I've simply borrowed her physical form (it's not hard, by the way. I dunno what YOUR shifters have been teaching you. Fuck all, clearly,) and in turn, gifted her with my own physical form." He snorted. "So for all intents and purposes, I now look like the ghost of the first girl I ever killed! Cool huh? Give it up for a Miss Stacy VanderLeigh!!" Keith chuckled again. "Silly little bitch, barging in here with your fuck-buddy, when we were just getting started."

I retched a little at the memory.

"So I dealt with her," Keith's grin was the canary, who has the canary in his pocket, saved away for later. "But your little fucker did something to my Lisa, and she's out cold." He frowned for a second, then abruptly grinned. "But she'll be up soon, I know."

The way he wrapped his tongue around her name made me shudder. I wondered why I hadn't seen this sort of sick devotion earlier.

"Where is Nick?" I demanded, my voice hard.

Keith beamed at me. "That's one of the best parts. He's up in Shadowland, most likely beating the shit out of your bratty friend, whom he thinks is me!" He chortled. "It's fucking beautiful, ain't it?"

This I doubted. It was a great idea in theory, but Keith underestimates the drive of anyone who, unlike himself, is not mentally deficient. I knew that Nick would listen to Stacy first. They would sort it out.

I hoped.

I started trying to plan. I couldn't get to them up there, while Keith, (who looked like Stacy,) was here, because he would either follow me up there, or do terrible things to my body so that I couldn't use it as my anchor to earth any more.

It wouldn't be hard to dispose of my body. Then I'd be as dead as Lisa wants me.

So my only option was to try and get Nick to come back here . . .

I have no idea how to do that.

"So . . ." I asked in what I hoped was an impressively offhand voice. I was on shaky ground, and we both knew it. "Let me just make sure I've got this. So this whole things can all be bottled down to this: Lisa, the mediator, got the ghost of a shifter to kill her daughter, just so that she could be in a relationship with . . . you?"

If you ask me, it was a bum trade.

"Sort of." Keith said pleasantly. I couldn't get used of staring into Stacy's eyes as we had this conversation. "But I wasn't a ghost at first."

I sneered, and said sarcastically, "Is anyone?" Then I understood what he'd said, and as understanding grew, my sarcasm cut out all together.

"I was alive when I met and loved Lisa, the light of my life." Keith supplied helpfully. "And then when Stacy" he sneered her name, "began to . . . obstruct our love, Lisa had an idea. See, she said there would be too much suspicion surrounding Stacy's death if I did it when I was alive, and then got together with her, Lisa, straight afterwards. She's so clever, my angel. And my angel knew, her being a mediator and I a shifter, that my being dead could not make a difference for US. So my angel decided . . . that it would be more convenient . . . if I were dead." He shrugged again. "So I did."

My jaw may have dropped a little. Just a little.

The simplicity of this statement frightened me more than anything else that had happened to me this night.

Lisa suggested Keith kill himself. So he just did.

There is nothing more sick or terrifying than that sort of perverse devotion.

And also, I was just a shade amazed at how lightly Keith regarded all this! Not only is he like, "Hang on a sec baby, did you say you want me to kill myself so we can't get caught when we kill your kid? YEAH SURE!!" But he's also like, "Death? Big deal. Like a walk to the supermarket for eggs, cheese and milk. Fuck the boring shit like LIFE! Your ideas are WAY more fun!"

What a fucking jerk off.

Keith continued to tell his story, in the same casual manner. "Then I had a couple . . . years off, I guess you could say, to fully master the powers I'd taken for granted in my ghost form. It was a bit harder than I thought. But then I came back, and well," Stacy's bony shoulders again shrugged modestly, "you know the rest." He beamed. "I shot Lisa's daughter. And I made it look like the girl did it herself."

It was most unnerving to hear this tale straight from Stacy's own lips. But I nodded slowly, fighting anger and taking the given time to mull over this.

. . . Then I thought of something, sure to piss him off and provoke him. And maybe, just maybe, that would alert Nick.

He's long been the hero of my sorry life.

And unlike some freaking fairytale hero, Nick doesn't just turn up at the eleventh-hour to save the damsel out of LUCK. I knew, I KNEW he had some spiritual assistance. Some ghost shit that tells him when fuckers like Lisa and/or Keith are on a killing spree.

He's a mediator, for fucks sake! He can set his house on fire just by staring really really intensly!!!! Surely he could sense the disturbance in the force that would be me getting the shit kicked out of me!

In hindsight, I can accept that this may not have been the most flawless of reasoning. But at the time, to my exhausted and overwhelmed mind, it was gold.

Because I would not give up.

Not again.

"That's all well and good Keith," I drawled slowly, "But lets just take a second to consider a few things?"

He nodded in what, for him, passed as a gesture of graciousness.

"As of right this instant," I said in my most chipper, isn't-the-world-a-beautiful-place voice, "Your whackjob GF is coma'd out over there in the corner, your body is fuck knows where up in astro-land, Nick is well, free and knows the whole story—"

Well. Almost. If I could live long enough to tell it to him, he would. Lets cross our fingers, eh?

"—And you," I continued merrily. "YOU my fat friend, are in a camisole top."

Keith's expression was priceless.

So just for good measure, I added, "But that skirt really fits you beautifully. The shaping over the thighs is . . ." I gathered the fingers the thumb of my right hand and brought them to my mouth to kiss the tips in an exuberant fashion, " . . . esquisite."

He snarled at me. There's no other word for it.

I would have like to laugh, but that wouldn't be doing my stomach any good, so I settled for sitting there, staring earnestly up at Keith with my very sweetest smile.

Keith's a bad sport.

With two short strides he was towering over me. He snatched up fistfuls of my hair and yelled in my face a few indistinctive words (although, I must admit, I got the gist,) spittle and saliva flying.

I couldn't help but wince as the gash over my ribs was unsettled, and Stacy's voice laughed at me.

Yet fortunately, Keith was hindered by his own decisions. He was used to having the physical force of a six-two beefy middle-aged man. Not a scrawny sixteen year old. He just wasn't packing the same sort of punch (I should know). I rather appreciated it that his own stupid choice to take Stacy's form has actually helped me, just a tiny bit.

Keith was like that, I was coming to realise. He has a complete lack of respect for the physical, the tangible. Instead he's literally obsessed with the metaphysical, the supernatural.

Case in point one: His light dismissal of his own physical form, and hurry to take Stacy's. Case in point two: his obsession with a woman he himself admitted wasn't really his to begin with.

Because every mother belongs to her child.

Unless of course, that mother has a better idea . . .

Keith released his hold on my neck, only to place a hand on each of my shoulders and shoved me so I stumbled and crashed heavily on the ground. Instinctively, I curled over to protect my tummy, but that just made it worse, as my touch instigated a new blood flow. Which was just what I needed. Not. Keith leaned down and placed his face directly in front of mine.

Which sucked.

Keith started all conversationally, "You know Melinda," and then suddenly he was yelling again. "I WASN'T FINISHED TELLING MY STORY!"

"Sor—" I spluttered, and tried again, trying not to move too much. "So-ry."

"I don't really think you are, somehow." Keith's voice was dispassionate. Then, aiming a kick at my midsection, which I screamed when I did not entirely manage to avoid, he said, "Ah well. Nevermind. I'll keep telling my story, shall I?"

He walked over to Lisa and gently lifted her up with Stacy's frail arms, and lumbered Lisa's considerately more bulky frame over into the chair. He propped her up in the seat where she lolled, sickly.

Kudos to Nick for that one, by the way.

He knocks out psycho's on command, really. What a guy.

Keith clutched Lisa to Stacy's body in a gesture of comfort. "I haven't finished my story, have I Angel?" he asked Lisa's unresponsive form. "And by cripes, Melinda, just you wait. You will fucking adore it!"

I doubted that very much.