Jon
Jon Snow should have been utterly terrified by what was going on. He and Ciri were on this gargantuan carriage, which she says was called a train. Instead of a horse, they were pulled by something called a steam engine, and even crazier than that, the thing moved faster than any horse did, never needing to stop for rest or anything other than picking up new passengers. Now Ciri was laying back on the cushioned couch they had been sitting on, resting her head in his lap, but didn't seem to actually be asleep.
Earlier in the ride, they read through a book called Dracula together. Ciri made it a little more terrifying to him by telling her that not only were vampires actually real, but that there were many of them in her home world- though many of the practices used by Dr. Van Helsing to deal with the vampires were actually common myths presented in her world, such as using garlic or a holy symbol to repel them. Now that they were finished with it though, and with the sun setting, sleep felt like the most natural course. Except neither he or Ciri seemed to be capable of managing it.
"What are we doing here exactly?" Jon asked, putting one of his hands around her head, cradling it. "Why did you bring us here specifically?"
"You know… call it my morbid fascination, if you will," Ciri said. "But I really wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery."
"What mystery?" Jon wondered.
Ciri looked around. "You see how we're almost entirely alone on the train, Jon?"
He looked around. "Yeah…"
"Well, in the city we're traveling towards, there's a serial killer on the loose," she explained. "And tomorrow night, he's apparently going to make a grand sweep of the city."
Jon shuddered. "Why would you want to come here then?"
"Well…" she said, lowering her voice, "I want to hunt the killer down. He didn't kill anyone on the night in question and… I wanted to find out why." She drew a letter out from her purse. "Here, look over this."
He unfolded the letter in his lap, and looked it over.
Hell, March 13, 1919
Esteemed Mortal:
They have never caught me and they never will. They have never seen me, for I am invisible, even as the ether that surrounds your earth. I am not a human being, but a spirit and a demon from the hottest hell. I am what you Orleanians and your foolish police call the Axeman.
When I see fit, I shall come and claim other victims. I alone know whom they shall be. I shall leave no clue except my bloody axe, besmeared with blood and brains of he whom I have sent below to keep me company.
If you wish you may tell the police to be careful not to rile me. Of course, I am a reasonable spirit. I take no offense at the way they have conducted their investigations in the past. In fact, they have been so utterly stupid as to not only amuse me, but His Satanic Majesty, Francis Josef, etc. But tell them to beware. Let them not try to discover what I am, for it were better that they were never born than to incur the wrath of the Axeman. I don't think there is any need of such a warning, for I feel sure the police will always dodge me, as they have in the past. They are wise and know how to keep away from all harm.
Undoubtedly, you Orleanians think of me as a most horrible murderer, which I am, but I could be much worse if I wanted to. If I wished, I could pay a visit to your city every night. At will I could slay thousands of your best citizens, for I am in close relationship with the Angel of Death.
Now, to be exact, at 12:15 (earthly time) on next Tuesday night, I am going to pass over New Orleans. In my infinite mercy, I am going to make a little proposition to you people. Here it is: I am very fond of jazz music, and I swear by all the devils in the nether regions that every person shall be spared in whose home a jazz band is in full swing at the time I have just mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going, well, then, so much the better for you people. One thing is certain and that is that some of your people who do not jazz it out on that specific Tuesday night (if there be any) will get the axe.
Well, as I am cold and crave the warmth of my native Tartarus, and it is about time I leave your earthly home, I will cease my discourse. Hoping that thou wilt publish this, that it may go well with thee, I have been, am and will be the worst spirit that ever existed either in fact or realm of fantasy.
-The Axeman
Jon looked up at Ciri when he was done. "We're going to be hunting down… this?"
"Well yeah. I wanted to try a different sort of witcher contract, something to change things up a little bit before we go back to your world." She sank back down into Jon's lap. "There were some theories as to who the Axeman of New Orleans really was, but the case was never solved- not officially, anyway."
"Is it an actual monster?" Jon asked.
"Well… it's not impossible. But all my witcher brethren always seem so focused on monsters that they sometimes forget that there are human monsters too. Like this one," she sighed.
"And you also wanted this to test me," he said, frowning. "So you think it's a real monster, don't you?"
"Yes," she admitted, "the problem is that this is a world that doesn't seem to have any monsters though. It has the usual old fables, like all worlds do, but they don't seem to be substantiated by any actual monsters here. So if there is a true monster… well I don't think the people can actually handle it." She rubbed her cheek, just beneath the curve of her scar. "After this night, there were two more attacks from the axeman- supposedly anyways- but I don't think they were actually him. The second to last one had the killer entering through a window, and the last one seems to have been someone who just pretended to be the Axeman while carrying out a more personal killing."
Jon didn't know what to make of that exactly. "Why do you think the killer didn't kill anyone on this night that he mentions in the letter, and why do you think he stopped?"
"Well… maybe it's because he was stopped," Ciri suggested. "Maybe it was just a human who decided to use this letter as his grand finale, a final 'fuck you' to all the people of the city. Maybe there wasn't anything linking any of this, and it was just a bunch of random people doing horrible things. I don't know… but if there was a true monster, I'd like to make sure it doesn't kill more."
"Right…"
"You should lay down too, Jon. We could both use a little bit of sleep."
He ended up taking Ciri's advice, and fell asleep rather quickly. Despite the loud noises of the train, the consistency of it allowed him to still sleep. At least for an hour, before he was woken up.
It was a steward who had woken them. "Perhaps you would like to move to a private compartment, sir and madam," he was saying.
"Huh?" Ciri called out groggily. "Private compartment…"
Jon looked around. He could see two new families were in the train car with them now- one of them had a baby it seemed, though it hadn't started to cry just yet. "That sounds nice," he told the steward.
Ciri seemed to become oriented again. "Just a second, if you please, I'd like to use the restroom before we go."
"Right," the steward agreed, with a nod. "It is along the way…"
The train has stopped. "Are we in New Orleans, yet?"
"Not yet, I'm afraid. Still a day away."
The two of them followed after the steward, who led them into the next car on the train. Once Ciri had finished up in the bathroom, they made the compartment, as the steward called it.
"Thank you," they said in unison as the steward opened the sliding door to the room.
The steward said a few things about the journey itself, and how they were being given the compartment because it seemed unlikely they would have more people to fill it, then left them alone as Jon and Ciri slipped within.
Inside there was a bunk bed, with enough space to comfortably hold two people on each of them if they really had to- possibly more if considering they were meant for families with children. The door served as a window to the rest of the train, and they had another window too, though Ciri almost immediately pulled the curtains, and they set their belongings down on the chair. From the look in her eyes, he knew what was about to happen next.
They had stayed at Dr. Dover's house for another three days after their trip to the mall, where they made love for the first time. As hesitant as Jon sometimes felt about it, he had found pleasure in it. In his mind, he still justified it as him simply doing what was needed to keep Ciri close to him, so she could help him and the Night's Watch, but more and more, he also found himself thinking back to something his Uncle Benjen had told him on the night he had made up his mind to join the Night's Watch. Until you have known a woman, you cannot understand what you would be giving up. Jon wasn't so sure he would have taken the vows of the Night's Watch if he had known Ciri before that.
When they were done, he insisted on them putting some clothes back on, just to ensure that they wouldn't have anyone walk in on them naked. Just like in Tessina, Jon and Ciri had to change outfits, she was wearing a dress with a skirt that reached down to her ankles, and he was wearing what she called a suit, which he found to be among the most uncomfortable things he'd ever worn. Though when he had complained about it to Ciri, she had told him to just deal with it, since she wasn't particularly comfortable in her outfit either.
Their swords and clothes were tucked away in their giant box, which she said was a suitcase even though it seemed much too large to just be holding suits. Meanwhile, Ciri had left Ghost and Kelpie in Tessina and said that they would go back for the animals when they were going back to Jon's world.
Just as Jon was about to go to sleep again, Ciri nudged him. "Jon, when we get to New Orleans, we need to be ready."
He frowned. "Why is it called New Orleans? Is… there an Old Orleans?"
"Probably," she agreed, "but we need to make a few things clear, like our story."
"We have a story?"
"Well of course, Jon. I don't know anyone here personally, so we need to introduce ourselves as a sort've ordinary folk," she explained to him. "It's a good thing I know a bit about this world."
Jon looked at her with uncertainty. "How?"
"Oh well, this is where my favorite song was made. We're some fifty years too early if I recall my dates correctly, but you know… it is what it is." She looked at him for a moment, then seemed to have a thought. "You're Mr. Jon Snow, and I guess I'd be Mrs. Ciri Snow. You're a detective who came when we heard about the Axeman across the Pond, having worked in London. Oh- I suppose, I'm from London, you're from… Leeds?"
"We're husband and wife?" Jon said, confused.
"Yes," Ciri said, nodding. "We're new to this whole detectiving thing, but we're a little bit older than we look." Then she frowned. "They probably won't be too happy about me helping out, but you'll tell them that I'm plenty useful, and that we always work together. I got my scar hunting baddies with you just a couple of years ago."
Jon seemed to get the gist of the story from there. "And… when we get off this train?"
"You'll hail a taxi," she said, like it was obvious. "The cars here won't be as advanced as the ones in Tessina, but I'll point out the taxi to you. You'll have to get in the front, and you'll tell him that we need to go to the police department."
"The police department," he repeated. "And when we're there I'll tell them how we heard about the Axeman while we were in London, and came here." He looked at her with curiosity. "So… what do we know about the Axeman besides the letter?"
"Well… it attacks people in the night. It breaks in and kills people with their axe in their homes, then seems to disappear."
"Right."
Ciri looked at him seriously. "Most likely, it's just some deranged human, but… it might not be." She must have read the confused look on Jon's face. "You should get some sleep now. It's gonna be a long day when we get there."
She wasn't wrong about that. Jon was already fairly tired after sleeping earlier, and it came quickly to him again. He had a restful sleep, one without any dreams.
Jon woke up several hours later. Ciri must have gone to use the restroom, because he was alone in the compartment. He felt himself grappling with how his family would feel if he told them that they were together. Uncle Benjen… well he'd tried to warn Jon before he joined the Night's Watch. He guessed that Lady Catelyn would prove to be indifferent, while his father… he couldn't say for certain what Lord Eddard's reaction would prove to be. Theon would have some crude remarks to say at their expense, and Robb would probably just avoid the subject all-together, while Myrcella would just accept Ciri as part of the family, regardless of what Jon said. That left Sansa, who he imagined would probably be deeply unsettled with seeing Ciri, Arya, who would probably idolize her. Jon didn't know how Bran and Rickon would feel about Ciri, but he imagined it might be favorable too. There was a part of him that did want to ask her to take him back to his family, or what was left of it, but that would make him a deserter by definition.
When Ciri came back, she let out an exasperated sigh. "I miss- whoa!"
"Did I scare you?" Jon asked, now sitting up in their bed.
"Well, yeah, I thought you were still sleeping." She frowned at him. "The conductor says we're getting closer."
"What is it that you miss?" He suspected it would have been something she saw out in the compartment.
"Oh, I miss getting piggyback rides, like when I was a girl at Kaer Morhen. I'd beg the witchers for piggyback rides all the time, but only Uncle Vesemir would give them to me." Ciri scoffed at the thought. "I mean, how is Geralt supposed to be my destiny when he wouldn't even give me a piggyback ride? 'You gotta be able to walk back to the keep by yourself after a hard day's training,' he'd always tell me, even when we hadn't even been training." She sat down beside Jon and sighed. "Maybe you could give me piggyback rides?"
"Ah… I'd wager you're heavier than you were at Kaer Morhen." Ciri was
"So? I'm still not as big as you." She laughed then. "No, it's fine, Jon. But I might have to take a slight detour in our return to your world."
That had been something that Jon had noticed quite a bit of in his time with Ciri, where sometimes she would present him with a plan like this, but never really give him room for input or choice. "You're telling me that you're going to take us back to your world, then."
"Yeah… I suppose my mind is made up," she agreed.
"We'll go to Kaer Morhen-"
She stopped him there. "-Maybe to Kaer Morhen, though I'll probably go wherever Geralt and Yennefer are," she corrected. "And if they aren't together, we'll just have to find both of them and bring them back to each other."
"And… what will I do?"
"I'll introduce you to them," she said with a smile.
Jon suppressed a shudder. Truth was, Geralt of Rivia and Yennefer of Vengerberg scared him a little bit. Her stories didn't exactly paint the happiest picture, with how they'd gone from being so foreign to so overprotective of her, the power they seemed to have, and how unpredictable they always seemed to be, particularly Yennefer. "I don't know how eager I am to meet them, truth be told," he admitted.
"They're not that bad, Jon. Do you think your father would have approved of me?"
"No," he said almost instantly. But… he wasn't entirely sure of that even. Of course, Jon's vows complicated things, but he couldn't feel certain about what Lord Eddard might have felt about them as a couple if he wasn't a part of the Night's Watch. He wasn't entirely sure how his father would feel about him suddenly coming home with Ciri.
Ciri shrugged. "Because of the sword?"
He shook his head. "I don't know how my father would feel about that," he allowed. "I just don't really know he'd like you…" Lord Eddard was not the most forceful man in Jon's experience, though he knew many who would take offense to seeing Ciri going around with a sword and the way she carried herself. "You're not like how women are raised to be in my world."
"Oh, you don't say?" she said with a laugh.
"I don't think father would approve of me being with you… he'd want me to take you as a wife, I think."
"Because I'm a princess?" she said, holding a scowl for just a second, before giggling. "I don't see why politics would be much of an issue, do you?"
"No…" Jon agreed. "Well… I suppose my father would be trying to get us to marry…"
Her reaction was as he expected. "Marry? Says who that I was going to agree to that?"
"Well… my father would want us to make sure we don't… have a bastard together," he said.
"We're being careful," she insisted. "I'm not stupid, Jon."
"He also wouldn't want me to uh… dishonor you," he added.
She shook her head. "That's a stupid way of thinking about things." Jon started to protest but she kept going. "Why is it that I am less valuable after having sex with you, but you're not, Jon?"
"I-" he still hadn't told her about how his Night's Watch vows forbid this relationship entirely, and he didn't do it now either.
"All those terms like dishonor are just their way of punishing people for having freedom, Jon. We're not worse people for enjoying each other's company to the fullest. Don't let others tell you any different." Then she gave him a small peck on the cheek. "You're worried that because Geralt and Yennefer just aren't anything like what you're used to that they won't like you, or vice versa?"
"I suppose," he agreed. He did Ciri's point at least, even if he still didn't feel entirely certain about what she wanted.
"Don't be… they just stand by whatever decisions I make in my romantic life and that's that," she explained to him. "I wouldn't bring you with me to see them if you were going to be endangered by meeting them."
"Mhm…" he still didn't know how much he trusted Ciri when it came to things like this .Even when she promised him that things would be fine, he only trusted it because he didn't feel he had much of a choice.
She turned back, and shut the compartment door and pulled the curtain. "Come on, Jon… one more time before we get there," she said, mussing up her hair.
A couple of hours later, they arrived at the train station, as Ciri called it. They'd already packed up their belongings by then, and had gone back to sitting out in the common area. When they finally came to a stop for the last time, Jon noticed that there was a river not too far off.
But for what he suspected to be a center of the city, there wasn't really anyone about. Weirder still were how many people were wearing masks.
"Um…" Jon said, "do they normally do that?" He hadn't paid much heed to the people wearing masks on the train, since it had only been a couple, but they seemed to be much more abundant here. "Does it have something to do with the Axeman?"
Ciri cringed slightly. "Ahm… well there must be some kind of outbreak here."
Jon looked at her. "Should we… go somewhere else?"
"Oh that's just brilliant, Jon. On the contrary it's best if we don't go anywhere, because if we got infected, even if we're safe from disease, others might not be." Her face brightened a little bit. "Now we can be quarantine buddies too!"
"What's… quarantine?" he asked.
"Well, it's when you have a disease that can spread from person to person, and so you have to wait in isolation to make sure you're not infected with it," she said. "Since we might be exposed to it already… we'll just do this, but…" She disappeared then reappeared suddenly. Now she was holding a pair of masks similar to those that others were wearing, and handed one of them to him. "Put this on."
Jon was able to figure out how easily enough and put the straps around his ears. "Like this?" he asked.
"Yup," she said, though now with the mask on he couldn't see her expression. In fact, he was amazed at how different she seemed with the mask on, as it covered most of her scar. Without it she looked almost… normal. Her hair was a bit of an unusual color, and there was the faint suggestion of her scar above her mask, but there wasn't much about her that seemed strange now. "Well, come on then. Once we're on the street, when I nudge you you're going to say, 'taxi, taxi,' but you're going to yell loud enough for them to hear you."
"Alright…" Jon said.
A couple of minutes later, he finally got a nudge. "Taxi! Taxi!" he yelled, trying really hard to feel serious in doing so.
One of the cars pulled over to where they were in the street. "Sir, madam, how might I help?" asked the taxi's driver. Jon was slightly aware of Ciri giggling next to him.
"We need to go…" he started to say, but then he forgot. Where are we going?
"Could you take us to the police station?" Ciri finished for him.
"Why yes, madam…" the driver said, smiling.
Jon and Ciri first worked together to load their things into the backseat of the car, which seemed significantly more primitive than the one they had used in Tessina. It had much thinner wheels, a much more thin and open feel to it, and no front doors, which Jon was a little bit worried about. Once their stuff was loaded up, they both got into the front seat- which looked more like a bench, he realized. When he tried to find his seatbelt, she gave him a funny look.
"Sorry, my husband is just a little shy," Ciri said, when the taxi driver began to start the car.
"What business have you got at the police station- if you don't mind me asking?" said the stranger. "Hoping to get protection when the Axeman makes his sweep?"
"Oh… no, we actually wanted to lend our support in finding him," Ciri said.
The driver looked at them with amusement, then didn't say anything the rest of the way, apart from wishing them luck as they parted. Ciri had already gotten some coin to pay him by that point, while Jon had gotten out and was getting their things from out of the back.
Jon remembered what Ciri had said, how he would need to lead them, since they wouldn't exactly take her seriously. "Bloody hell…" he heard her mutter as they approached.
The door to the building was open, and sitting around the table were a gathering of men, perhaps a dozen or so, who were bickering. They had uniforms which were surprisingly similar in look as those guards at the Tessina Mall.
I need to lead. "You seem to need help," Jon said, as they walked into the building.
All at once, the bickering ceased. "Who the hell are you two?" asked one of them.
"We're here to help," Jon said. "We hunt people like this axeman across the lake."
"For the last time, Jon… it's across the pond, not across the lake," she muttered, but loud enough to make certain she was heard. "We're from Brittany, is what he means to say."
A couple of men chortled. "Brittany?" asked one. "You sure that's not your name, wench?"
Ciri looked like she was going to walk up and punch the man.
"We don't need your help hunting the man down," said another one of the police. "Not from idiots like you."
"Idiot…" Ciri replied, completely aghast. "We're not…"
Jon didn't want them to get into a fight here, so he pulled Ciri away. She protested as he pulled her out of the building, at least at first. Then she finally allowed him to pull her away.
They walked a few hundred feet away from the building before finally sitting down. "That was stupid…" Ciri muttered, "stupid, stupid, stupid…"
"Yeah…" Jon agreed, sitting down next to her.
The following hours were a blur to Jon. He and Ciri walked down the streets of New Orleans, and he took in the sites of the city. Maybe it was normally more lively, but today it seemed bleak and gloomy. Even the music didn't seem to be played with a sense of joy and fun, but instead had a feel of fear and obligation to it.
By the time it started to get dark, Ciri seemed to be more interested in the various places where they could get drunk.
"Ohh," she said, giggling and squeezing his hand after a while, "The Drunken Hammer… I think that's the best one we've encountered." Then she pulled him hard enough that Jon could have sworn if he were anchored, she would have taken his arm with her.
A sign on the window of the pub said White Men Only, but through the window, he saw no shortage of both women and children. Then there was another sign too. "Ciri, what's a n-"
"-Jon!" she hissed, "you're not supposed to say that word out loud!"
"It's on the sign," he protested. "Do they write it so that they don't have to say it? Is it a kind of monster?"
She stopped him right there. "They're not monsters, Jon. They're humans…"
"Why aren't they-"
She interrupted him again. "-I suppose I should have explained it to you before we got here… in this world, people don't all have the same skin color, Jon. You and I would be what they refer to as White. But people with darker skin, they would be called Black, or other names. They're saying that only White people like us are allowed into their club, and the word they use is an awful one. It's like… hm… it'd be like if you called me cunt because I'm a woman, except it's even worse than that."
"Should we go somewhere else then?" Jon suggested. "Maybe there's one that isn't-"
"That's the thing, Jon… we're going to have a much harder time finding one where everyone is welcome." She let out another sigh. "Most human conflicts are really stupid. Hell, I bet that war your brother is fighting right now in your world is over something really stupid too… not that your father dying isn't horrible, but like… the reason your father died was stupid. It's just… it's so draining when every time you go to a new world, you find them always making the same mistakes over and over."
He felt like she had opened another window into her mind again for him to peer into. "You feel like you can't enjoy yourself in all of this?"
Ciri nodded. "Sometimes… it's directed at me, like with the police. But usually it's just finding these horrible worlds, where people are treated cruelly for the sake of increasing their own power. Yours is probably like that too. Your family is pretty well off because they get to profit from being at the top of the feudalism pyramid, just like mine, while countless thousands or maybe even millions live in subservience to our families for no other reason than us being born to the right people." She seemed to figure out what he was about to ask right after that. "Feudalism is what we live under… most people are born and live and die as peasants so that we get to live in luxury, because it's our 'God given' right to rule over all of them. It's bullocks, Jon… all of it is such bullocks."
It seemed now like she was about to start crying.
"You're not bad like them," he said, putting his arms around her. "You're not horrible…"
"Am I?" she asked, breaking away from him. There was genuine uncertainty in her voice now. "I go from world to world… I try to help people, try to make things better, but… every time I just feel so hopeless when I try." She stopped for a second. "After I took Geralt and Yennefer to Avalon… I went to this world called Camelot, which… I told you a bit about it. Things went wrong there, so… in the next world I swore I would try to help people more. Took a woman and her children away from her abusive husband, gave money to people who didn't have it, did what I could to undermine the corrupt leaders, killed monsters… I was exhausting myself, Jon, and it still didn't even feel like I was making that much of a difference. Those people I gave money to, they ended up running out quickly enough… more monsters replaced the ones I killed… the corrupt leaders just got replaced with more corrupt leaders… and that woman and her sweet little babies… that was the worst…"
She stopped. Internally, he debated asking her to elaborate, knowing that it must have been something really horrible. After thinking it over, he figured that Ciri might feel a little bit better if she wasn't keeping it in. "What happened to them?"
"The husband I freed her and her children from… he tracked them down and…" her voice faltered. "He butchered them, while I wasn't there to protect them." Tears started to flow then. "Penny was… so sweet, so lovely, so… she didn't deserve a man like her husband. But he… he couldn't let her go. He couldn't… and those little ones…" It was then that she let out an audible sob. "They… deserved Avalon too, but… but I was… too late…"
Jon sensed that Ciri's affections for this Penny might have run a little deeper than she was willing to admit. The tears were still running down her face.
He hugged her again, putting one of his hands against her head to keep her close. She didn't shirk away from him this time.
"What if you tried… going further back?" he suggested. "What if we went to where Penny and her children are now… if you took them from that world, and brought them with us?"
Her voice seemed steadier when she spoke. "It's… not like that, Jon. I might be the Lady of Space and Time, but… I can't go back and undo things that have already been done. I tried that after the Battle of Stygga… I just became frozen in place out of sight, where I couldn't change anything, and had to watch the battle unfold just as it had the first time. Like when we go back to your world, Jon… I can't change what happened in that fight you had with the Others. We can't just save your companions like that." Now she had become more scared. "Sometimes… I worry that things are already written, Jon… like everything that I do… I'm just going along the line of what has already happened… like as if time isn't a river, but just happening all at once… or… are things different when I don't go somewhere? If before I had gone to save you, you had been killed by those monsters, and until that moment when I came… that's where things ended for you."
Jon put a hand underneath her chin. "Maybe… you should stay a while with me then," he suggested. "Instead of going from one world to another, finding all that's so horrible in each one… maybe you just need to stick to one for a while."
She smiled at him, as if in admiration of his words. "I hope we can find a way for things to work out for us there," she agreed. "I've just… learned not to get my hopes up too high like that."
He had a different thought. "What if you tried… bringing them to now?" he suggested. "Like if you were to bring Penny and her children, and my companions to where we are?"
"I tried that too after Stygga. Tried to bring Regis and Cahir and Milva and Angoulême back from the dead… it didn't work," she said. "There was something about that place… I don't think my powers were working at all there… but…" She suddenly backed away from him, with a different expression on her face. "I did try it, Jon, really. I just don't think it's possible. What good is it for me to have my powers but not be able to meaningfully change anything?"
He considered that for a moment. "Maybe… your powers aren't for the sake of undoing what has been done, but for… teaching?" he suggested. "Making sure that things that happen in one world won't happen in another."
"Yes but… what am I supposed to do as just one person, Jon?" she wondered. Then she looked at him even more frustratedly. "That's not to mention the fact that where I go, destruction follows."
"Well you saved me," he pointed out. "That has to count for something, doesn't it?"
"Yes…" she agreed. "But you're the first person I've rescued from true danger in… a long time… mostly I just look for random monsters to kill when I feel like it." She moved her head a little bit closer. "Come on, Jon… I'd just like to get hammered already, so I can feel better."
They walked over to the counter, where a man was standing, pouring drinks. Jon had no idea what they were doing, but Ciri worked with enough confidence for both of them.
"Oh, innkeep," Ciri said, fluttering her eyelashes at him. "Can we get something to drink, please?"
The man looked over at them, and flashed a look of contempt. "What do you want to drink?"
Ciri made a face, though it was obscured by her mask. "Um… well we're not… from here. Like at all. I mean, what's your drinking culture even like in this world right now?"
"Innkeep," the man muttered, recalling what Ciri had said just a few seconds earlier. "I'm a bartender, I'd have you know. I take it you come from somewhere in Europe."
"No we're from Leeds," Jon corrected, remembering Ciri having said something about him being from that city.
"Jon…" Ciri scolded, "how many times must I tell you not to butt in when you're not paying attention?" Then she turned back to the Innkeeper. "What my dolt of a husband means to say is that yes, we are from Europe, and specifically from the city of Leeds."
"I'm not a dolt…" Jon protested, deciding to keep up the act.
Ciri looked at him with wide eyes, then turned back to the bartender. "Oh, just surprise us, would you?"
Jon didn't see a band or any musician playing the music which filled the air, which struck him as odd, while the bartender began to set about making their drinks. When the bartender came back, he set the drinks out in front of them.
"How many are here because of the Axeman?" Jon inquired.
The bartender snorted. "Any man who's here alone is regular business. Anyone who came with their family isn't."
Looking around, he didn't see any who appeared to be a man who was there alone. Jon had another question then. "Do women not usually come here?"
"No…" said the bartender, as if it were obvious. "Women have their own places to drink."
"Yes…" Ciri agreed, taking over momentarily, "but Jon's a real sweetheart, so we always drink together. He just doesn't get why men would be so stubborn about not wanting good company."
Jon nodded, to agree with her summary.
"So what brings you to New Orleans? You're pretty far from England…"
"We wanted to travel," Ciri said. "The war's over now, so why not explore a little?"
"You fight in the war?" the bartender asked Jon.
"No," he said. Ciri had mentioned something about a war earlier in the day, a really nasty one that had just been fought. He didn't know any details about it though, so he didn't want to be pressed for answers on it. "Truth is we barely noticed."
The man raised an eyebrow. "Must be one neat trick to barely notice a war like that…"
Ciri stepped in again. "Well… we didn't notice right away, is what he means." She pulled down her mask, revealing the full extent of her scar. "It's not like we weren't affected by the war. Luckily Jon wasn't old enough to be conscripted right until the end."
"Heh," said the bartender, "pretty lucky you are then… had a couple of cousins from London who died in the war."
"That's horrible…" Ciri said with a sad tone.
"Four years ago already…"
Jon figured that Ciri would probably spend all night talking with this bartender if she could, but there was the matter of the job they were still carrying out. "You wouldn't happen to know anyone who was attacked by the Axeman, would you?"
"Mmm…" the man frowned, "knew the victims who were attacked two days ago. Matteo and Bianca. Bianca didn't make it, but Matteo…" he looked around then. "What do you want from him?"
"We were going to hunt the Axeman," Jon said. "Wanted to find out information about him."
"Ah…" the bartender didn't seem wholly convinced, but still, he pointed in the distance. "He's over there."
"Thank you," Jon said, with a polite smile that was obscured by his mask. "Come on, Ciri." She made sure to grab the drinks as they walked over towards the stranger. When they got closer, Jon noticed the man was missing an arm, and the bandage on it made it appear as though it had only recently been amputated. He was sitting alone, and was already on his third drink. "Matteo?"
"Huh?" the man said, looking up. He was a large man, but he looked dazed and incoherent. "Whaddya want?"
"Drinking's good," Ciri said, "I don't think it's wise after such bad injuries though. Shouldn't you still be at the hospital?"
"Meh…" Matteo said, still obviously in a stupor.
"Can you tell us anything about the Axeman?" Jon wondered. "We're going to track him down and kill him."
"Oh? Well I want his arm if you do," he said, slurring heavily.
"Yes…" Jon said, "but can you tell us anything about him?"
"He's big…" the man replied, "bigger than you'd believe." Matteo was himself a fairly large man by Jon's judgment, so if he thought the Axeman was big, then the killer must've been huge.
"Do you remember anything else?"
"I woke up, and… my arm…"
"Good, very good," Ciri said, "I think that'll be enough."
"I'll pay you for the son of a bitch's arm," said Matteo.
Ciri shook her head. "No, we're good, actually. But thank you for the offer."
She had already finished her drink by this point, and was pulling Jon over to the counter.
"Need another?" asked the bartender.
"No," Ciri said, "we're leaving."
"Ah… well…"
"Here," Ciri said, pulling out cash from her purse. "You can keep the change." Before Jon had even gotten the chance to say something, they were back outside.
"What are you doing?" he asked her.
"Asking victims about the attacks is only useful when they aren't actively drinking themselves to death," she told him. "All that chatter and the music… I was getting a headache too."
"Alright… so what now?"
"We'll kill the Axeman," she said. "I have a plan."
Ciri's plan involved them taking up an old abandoned building as a hideout apparently. She told Jon to sit down, and wait for her, then teleported away. She returned several times with different things that she instructed him not to touch. Only after she returned for the final time did she start to set things up, but she still didn't include Jon in it.
He had no idea what he was looking at now. "Ciri… what is this?"
"A music system," she announced proudly.
"Uh…"
"The Axeman wants jazz music. So we'll just… play things that aren't jazz."
"I see…"
With a click on the thing she was holding, suddenly music started to play. For a few seconds, it was just instrumental. Then suddenly he heard a man's voice singing, "Lord Almighty, I feel my temperature rising."
Ciri was already upon him then, with her hands over his neck. "Dance with me," she demanded.
Jon didn't get the chance to protest, as Ciri led them. For a couple of minutes, they were all over the place, spinning and dancing around the entire room. That was until the song finally ended.
Ciri was smiling afterwards. "That was fun," she said, as completely different music started to play.
"Do you want to dance to this song?" Jon asked. Notably, there was no singing now, just instrumental, which couldn't have been any more different than the music they had heard at The Drunken Hammer.
She shook her head. "That was my favorite song, that's why I started with it."
"And… it's about… being in love?" Jon guessed, thinking back to the lyrics. "Do my kisses lift you higher?"
Ciri giggled. "Maybe," she answered with a mysterious tone.
For a couple of hours they ended up sitting together. They didn't even talk much, with the music blaring over the top. Ciri drank a few more drinks, and offered Jon some, though he politely declined. After a little while, she started to tell him a little bit more about the different worlds she'd seen, specifically the ones she'd been to after meeting the unicorns. She was telling him about this man she had encountered named Forest Gramps, who had tried to kill her to cannibalize her when someone new walked in.
"You ain't jazzin'," said the stranger walking in.
"No," agreed Ciri, turning around. "I think this is better, if we're being honest."
"Nobody's been as stupid as you two," the stranger said, approaching them.
"Or maybe you're the stupid one," Ciri taunted. While she and Jon had been waiting, they'd gotten their swords out from the trunk, and were now wearing them.
The man was dragging an ax behind him. Notably though, there was no blood on it. Short was Jon's initial thought when he saw him. Muscular, yes, but still shorter than what the account of Matteo had described. The Axeman was shorter than both Jon and Ciri, with dark hair and dark eyes, and a deeply worn face.
But then right before Jon's very eyes, he seemed to expand and grow. His body elongated and grew, until he stood taller than any man that Jon had ever seen before.
"Let them not try to discover what I am, for it were better that they were never born than to incur the wrath of the Axeman," said the man, quoting his letter which Jon had read. "Well it seems you two have the privilege of just that."
Then the man's body contorted further. At first, Jon thought it was turning into an enormous bat, but that simply wasn't so. His hands elongated into long claws, dark hair that matched the dark-grey skin formed on its back, being most prominent near the shoulders, and went over to form what was almost like a beard on the monster's chest. The flesh that wasn't covered in hair was sinewy, with jutting veins that still resembled the same color as the flesh, which was uniform all over the body. Jon felt a jolt of terror running through him in that moment, but his fear was amplified ten-fold by looking at the monster's face. The flesh on the face was dark grey, like the rest of the body. Its neck was not positioned at the top of the torso, making it so that the shoulders of the monster were higher than the face. The mouth had become much more of a gaping hole, with pinkish flesh surrounding it. The noise seemed to be flat, but the eyes were in deeper sockets, compared to the otherwise crest-shaped head, and from the head jutted two elongated ears, which were outside of the two curved horns, which looked almost as sharp as the claws were. It was a true monster, and his instinct was to turn and run.
Ciri meanwhile seemed unimpressed. "Oh that's great… you're just a katakan," she replied coolly, though with a bit of slurring as well. "I'm not impressed."
"I am the Axeman," the monster replied, in a blustery tone. "None can equal me."
"You're like the fifth most powerful species of vampires. Or was it the sixth?" she said with a shrug. "Whatever, you're not that scary. You attacked people while they were sleeping and only managed to kill half of them."
"I'm the most powerful being-"
Ciri began to talk over the top of him. "So you're just a rogue vampire who got dropped off in this world and hasn't met any others, got it." She made a face. "Come on, let's see how good you are with that ax then, since you insist on being the Axeman."
With a grunt, the katakan, as Ciri called it, began to charge at them. Jon felt himself going white with terror as it was bearing down upon them. He was vaguely aware of the fact that he had pulled out Longclaw and was holding it up now, but if the Axeman had charged at him instead of Ciri, he would have likely been killed.
But it was not much better for Ciri either. Evidently drunk, she took much longer to react than she ought to have, and ended up teleporting at the last second, right before the Axeman would have cut her in two. Instead of teleporting somewhere that would have allowed her to potentially attack the Axeman from behind though, she ended up several yards off the mark, with her swing only cutting through the air.
"Uggh," Ciri groaned, when she realized she had missed. "Come on, Axeman, show me what you've got."
The Axeman turned around, dumbfounded by Ciri's sudden teleportation. "What? H-how?"
Ciri gave a drunken grin. "Well, are we doing this or not?"
Jon realized then that she wasn't up to the task. She was too drunk to try and fight this monster alone. He lifted Longclaw up a little bit higher, remembering what Ser Rodrik had told him as a boy. There will always be someone bigger, stronger, faster than you. This monster was just that. "I don't teleport," he called out, baiting the monster to come after him. "Over here!".
The Axeman hefted his ax then. "Rrrg," he groaned, then began to barrel towards Jon.
Almost immediately, Jon began to realize that he was not at as great of a disadvantage as he initially thought, because of something Ciri had been alluding to in her taunts. This monster was bigger, stronger, and likely faster than him, but had no skill. His attacks were crude without any shred of technique, allowing for easy parries or dodges. Jon had focused on defending himself at first, not wanting to dare to attack the beast, but when he started to realize it, he began to take note of the vulnerabilities.
When the Axeman was raising his weapon over his head, for just half a second there was a moment where Jon was able to stab him in the chest, which he took, then backed away in time, as the blow came down with a howl of pain. The blood that flowed from the wound was a very dark blue.
"You…" the monster bellowed, as he touched the wound.
Jon didn't give him the chance to finish, instead launching his assault. The Axeman had been launching attack after attack, but between his inexperience and the ax he was wielding, he was not competent when it came to defense. He was able to slash at the beast's ankle, get another stab in the chest, and nearly sliced one of the arms off completely. It seemed as if he actually would be able to kill the beast…
Until it dropped the axe.
A second later, the monster was on top of Jon, who had been able to stab it in the stomach as they fell. Longclaw was now buried in the monster though, and Jon was trapped under the creature who had its fangs and claws.
"Ahhh…" said the monster, savoring the moment for just a second. Then lifting its hand to Jon's face, it began to scratch. He howled as he felt the skin on his forehead and right cheek get shredded by the three deep claws. A second later, there was a gush of blood, and the full weight of the Axeman of New Orleans suddenly crushing him before he was blinded.
Jon groaned as the pain overwhelmed him, but then the taste of blood filled his mouth. He was distantly aware of Ciri crouching over him. "Jon, oh, Jon…" then there was a pop, as if she were traveling through space and time. "Alright, I'm going to get you out of this, Jon," she then said, sounding completely sober.
As the weight of the Axeman's corpse was being lifted, Jon blacked out.
Author Notes:
Please be aware that all of this is just meant to be fun. Yes, the Axeman of New Orleans was a real serial killer. And while I did a good bit of research while writing this chapter, I'm not going to pretend like I came anywhere close to a fully accurate depiction of the city.