Belated Ficcage
Jan. 18th, 2010 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fearful_symmetry(I realized, long after the fact, that this was never posted to Lynn's personal journal:)
"Remember," Luca cautioned, "We got no support here. This isn't the Bowery."
Linette looked around Division Street, at its slanted tenements, trash-choked gutters, soot-frosted piles of slush and gray-washed streets, all identical to the slum she called home.
"Couldn't tell for lookin' at it."
"Don't mistake me a'purpose, girl," her brother growled, bopping the crown of her skull with the meaty side of his fist. "Keep your head, for the love of God."
She grunted and fell back a pace, letting him take point as they stepped off the street and down a side-alley. The path quickly became a warrenous run, dark as twilight despite the watery noontime sun. The buildings here leaned ponderously agaist one another, blocking all but a few thin inches of sky. Well, at least they'd kept the slush from piling up and blocking the route alltogether. She and Luca weren't locals, they'd have a hard enough time finding the appointed place without having to climb mounds of dirty snow.
Trouble was, nobody back in the Bowery would fight her, not anymore. She'd broken too many faces, too many arms, put too many men out of work for too long. Privately, Linette always figured anyone in a match-fight accepted that same risk, but hungry wives and children didn't see it that way. She sometimes wondered if those wives were all irate because she'd gone and battered their dear spouse, or because they knew that spouse had Ideas about what a win might entitle them to.
That was neither here nor there at the moment. The point, the problem was that she couldn't make any money in her own neighborhood, and she'd never learned anything other than fighting and hawking. Luca'd gone and accepted a match from some Deitsch he knew from his factory job, so here they were on division street, her with her fists wrapped up in linen strips and him with his knife in his pocket. Seemed other streets had heard of her and wanted to see if she was some kind of freak, or if Russki men had cunts between their legs.
The alley spat them out into a kind of courtyard, no more than an intersection of four or five other runs. A score of men ringed the space, crowded up against the walls in knots. Most wore patched jackets and caps pulled low over their ears, but some had draped their coats over crates or barrels to perch off the cold ground. Tenement windows overlooked the space, but most were boarded up against the chill. There'd be no free seats this afternoon.
Luca stepped forward to talk to his Deitschman, a stooped man with overdeveloped shoulders and bandy legs. Her brother tugged deferentially at his hat, but his back was straight and his jaw was set. Linette didn't bother trying to listen in; she was far more interested in the mutters and whispers passed between the spectators. She didn't speak their language, but had no trouble interpreting the leers, the sneers or the scoffs. Well, let them laugh. She'd prove herself in blood soon enough.
The Deitsch stepped aside and gestured to one of the seated men, who set his flask aside and climbed to his feet. Linette pegged him at five foot nine, with arms like an ox-drover and a torso to match. A quick sniff confirmed her guess; he stunk of the stock yards and the animals he worked with. He was probably faster than people took him for, fast enough to avoid getting gored. So, quick and strong. Well, she had her advantages too.
Luca shook hands with the Deitschman and rejoined her, pocketing a handful of coins. Linette saw the spectators watch his hands, and made a note to watch their trail on the way home.
"Got the measure of the man?" Luca asked, chancing that none of these men spoke their tongue, either.
"Da."
"Good. Usual rules. You go soon as I step out."
Linette nodded and shrugged out of her jacket. She wore boys' clothes any given day of the week, though skirts were warmer in winter. Despite their differing neighborhoods and backgrounds, she and the drover were identically dressed in brown wool pants and no-color cotton shirts. His was sleeveless under straining suspender straps, while she paused to roll her sleeves past the elbow. They both wore rude shoes of stiff brown leather, though she doubted he had room to stuff his with insulating bits of newsprint. They had perhaps half a minute to size each other up before both moderators left the unofficial "circle."
The drover shifted his weight to the balls of his feet and raised his arms, elbows close to the chest, boxer to the core. Linette doubted he was trying to deceive her by putting that style on display. He looked at her the way they all did, with blind confidence in his eventual victory. No, he wouldn't see a need to play games. She held up her own hands, extended a ways in front of her, fingers splayed and wrists loose. They circled one another, and she was not surprised when he opened with a straight jab for her chin.
She reckoned he was pretty fucking surprised when she ducked to the side, grabbed his arm in both of hers as though it were a flagpole and swung her slight weight up, the nail-studded heel of her boot lashing out to catch the corner of his jaw. She released his arm at the apex of her swing, tucking into a roll that carried her to the edge of the circle while her opponent staggered away. She'd known the kick to be solid and saw that now in the slight glaze to his eyes. He spat blood and raised a hand to touch the ragged gashes on his cheek, where nail heads tore stubbled flesh. The indifference faded from his eyes, replaced by bleak red rage.
He rushed her, but she dove between his legs and whirled with corkscrew precision, the momentum of her turn lending extra strength to the fist she planted in his kidney. When the drover grunted and keeled over, she lept onto his back and pummeled his head with fierce blows from both elbows and fists. He staggered around like a bull afflicted with ants, scrabbling over his shoulders for a grip on her shirt or hair. It was only a matter of time before his fingers closed on her braid, and then he had all he needed to pull her over his head.
Luckily for her, he was too dumb to keep the hold, too angry to do anything but dash her against the cobblestones. The fall knocked the breath from her lungs, but she'd cushioned her head with her arms and was aware enough to roll towards the stomp he'd aimed at her head. She wrapped herself around his braced leg and sank her teeth into the meat of his calf.
The drover bellowed and fell, balance all fouled up by the girl behind his knees. He hit the ground thrice as hard as she had but without the sense to save his skull. Quick as an alley cat, Linette clambered up his body to straddle his ribcage, grinding bony knees into his hanging ribs as she rained punches down on his face. His features became less recognizeable with every hit, nose and cheeks and chin slowly becoming an amorphous mass of flesh and splintered bone. Her own knuckles shattered under repeated impact, but Linette couldn't care less. She'd done what Luca'd warned her against; she'd gone and lost her sense, and with it all perception of the specators. Their angry cries fell on deaf ears.
Luca's warning shout fared no better.
Someone hit her over the head from behind. With what, she didn't know, but it drove splinters into her scalp and dashed her to the stones like a discarded egg. Her vision went completely black, then purple, then yellow with vivid blue traceries of veins. Was the roaring in her ears the rush of her own blood or the shouting of the crowd? She didn't know, but she intended to find the motherless piece of shit who'd struck her down and feed him his own feet, so help her God. Feebly, she rolled onto her stomach and levered herself up, managing to rise as far as her knees. Blood ran down her face and neck, streaming from her split scalp. The warmth of it helped bring her around, but did nothing to clear the fog from her eyes.
"Lynn!"
She cast about for Luca, recognized him as a pale blur with a shock of blonde hair and groped in his direction. There were too many legs between them, pressing towards her fallen opponent or her brother. Luca grappled with someone, clocking them right on the point of their chin. Linette felt a thrill of victory as her brother's opponent went down, a thrill that quickly curdled.
"Luca, behind!"
She saw another man come up behind him, saw an arm rise, saw metal glint in the filtered sunlight, saw just where it would fall. She bayed a warning and threw herself towards him, knowing it wouldn't be enough.
It wasn't.
Luca grunted in surprise, back arching even as he crashed to his knees. He made one futile reach for the knife between his shoulder blades, but couldn't bring his fingers to bear on the hilt. Blood began to foam at his lips as he sagged forward, toppling onto his face.
Linette mewled low in her throat and scrabbled across the remaining cobbles, able only to scoot on her knees. One of the men laughed and seized her by her hair, dragging her the rest of the way to throw her down within arms' reach of her brother. Her assailant planted a foot on her back and yanked on her braid, torquing her head so that she could see Luca's face.
He still lived. He'd struck his head when he fell, so that blood oozed from his temple and bubbled from his mouth with every shallow breath. His eyes flicked from side to side as though he'd found himself in a trap, but he didn't seem to see her. There was no pain on his face, just a look of incredulous shock.
"Luca," she croaked. "Luca, look at me. Spasiba, look at me..."
For all her begging, he simply looked through her, past her, until the last breath rattled out of his lungs and his eyes glassed over. As she searched his vacant stare for any flicker of her brother, she felt a tug at her suspenders. Someone was hard at work pulling her trousers over her hips.
A tide of disbelief washed over her. There was no grief, no shock, only anger, keen and piercing. Who were they to strike her down from behind like cowards? Who were they to mob an outnumbered man and force his sister to watch him die? Who were they to think to rape her?! They were men and men only. Not gods, not angels or devils, just pitiful humans, huddling in back alleys and tenement houses.
They were pathetic. Their weakness offended her. It offended the world.
With the rage came strength, a wellspring of it from deep in her gut. Squirming, surging, Linette twisted her body around and lunged for her would-be rapist's neck. Her teeth sank into the soft flesh on either side of his windpipe, piercing skin and muscle with ease. The man's squeal swiftly became a gurgle as her jaws crushed his throat like an implacable vise. His blood flooded her mouth, drowning her, but she would not let go no matter how he clawed at her. Her world narrowed to the necessity of this kill, excluding the startled screams of the other men and the pain that wracked her body.
When his struggles stopped, she found herself standing over him on all fours, blood dripping from her maw. She licked her lips clean and raised a massive paw to her mouth to polish the crimson away. Shocked silence filled the alley, punctuated by the sharp scent of urine and voided bowels. Linette raised her head and glanced around at the frozen men, aware that her perception had somehow become closer to the ground. Her head no longer bothered her much and her vision had sharpened beyond all wishes. A pleased rumble filled her chest, but the satisfaction did not dull her rage. They were all accomplices to Luca's death, and so they would pave his way.
Revenge roared from her, shaking the surrounding tenements to their rickety foundations. Linette moved like liquid, like fire and water and wind made one quicksilver element, and the men fell before her like tress in a flood. She cracked their skulls between her teeth, shook them like ragdolls 'til their necks snapped and gutted their bellies with vicious kicks of her hind legs. They died screaming, praying to their God, learning at last what she had recently realized: That they were only men, and men died with ease.
Elation filled Linette to the brim, such that she nearly danced on their remains. She wasn't done here, she couldn't be done! She had too much drive left, too much of this desire to drag down those men who thought themselves more than cringing beasts. She turned to the nearest alleyway, bristling with purpose. With these new, sharper senses, finding her way out of the warren would be child's play.
She'd taken no more than two steps when a shadow detached itself from the alley wall and slammed her to the ground. Linette tried to flip onto her back and rake at the attacker with her claws, but teeth sank into the thick ruff of fur and skin behind her neck. She barely had time to squawk before it gave her a shake, followed by another and another until she could no longer tell up from down, left from right. The enormous shadow flung her aside, bunched itself up and pounced on her, all but flattening her to the cobbles. The world took two sharp hops to the left, tilted, then slid back into place with a soft "pop."
"There, now," someone clucked, "That will be quite enough of that."
Though her vision swam and her head spun and she could scarcely breathe past the weight on her chest, Linette squinted up at the person who'd quite neatly pinned her. Her eyes focused slowly on the face hovering over her own.
This, she thought, is the most beautiful person.
A woman of indeterminate age, surely not so old as forty yet not so young as twenty five, perched on Linette's ribcage as though sitting sidesaddle. She was dressed for hunting, certainly, bundled up in a heavy riding coat of forest green brocade. Beneath it she wore a buttoned dress of yellow wool over snowy linen, the sort Lynn could only dream of feeling against her skin. Lace spilled over her collar and cuffs, and the pointed toes of leather riding boots peeped below the hem of her dress, where she'd crossed her ankles. Her face was like an inverted teardrop, all wide forehead and delicate chin above and below a doll's nose and painted china mouth. There was something exotic about her eyes, agate-green with oddly upturned corners and artfully painted on shadows. They shone, those eyes, against skin brown-gold as bottled honey, not the milky white Linette would've expected from such a fine lady. Even her hair was lighter than her skin, all suntouched amber done up in beautifully coiffed waves. Lynn's fingers itched to touch that hair, but the woman's smokey stare kept her hands pinned at her sides, which was for the best, as she was sure her calloused hands would only snag and ruin the updo.
She'd never gawped so hard at anyone in her life, would've stared at this person even if the woman's hands, long-boned and browned as the rest of her, weren't pinning her down by the shoulders. But maybe the numbness wasn't all in her brain; the cobbles were so cold that they burned like coals against her bare skin, adhering to her hide so she was like to leave most of it behind once the woman let her up. It came to Linette, all in a flash, that she was naked, that most of the bones in her hands were broken , that she'd just killed a man with her teeth.
That Luca was dead.
The thought sent her twisting, slewing about not to throw the lady off but to look for her brother. But even if she'd been free to stand, she wouldn't have known where to begin; the intersection looked like the scrap room in a charnel house, all spilled guts, severed limbs and fat organs exposed and shining. Her wildest imagination couldn't suggest how this might've happened, though she remembered --dimly-- attacking these men, throwing herself into them, tearing them down like cattle with her fangs and claws and cruel, liquid strength.
My mind's snapped, Linette thought, hysteria bubbling up beneath leaden exhaustion. That was it, surely: she'd gone off her head, went berserk, found a knife on one of the men and... She turned away from the carnage, seeking answers from the only other living person in the alley. The poor lady must have stumbled on the mess and thought her a victim. She really ought to warn her to run, before the crazy came back and drove her to sink her teeth into that dark throat. Her mouth worked soundlessly, but the lady only smiled and slid off Linette's chest to kneel beside her.
"You've not gone mad, however you might feel," she cooed, smoothing blood-caked hair away from Lynn's cheek as though she were a child, "What happened was very real. Were you attacked? Molested? There's no shame in that. Rape has woken more of us to our true natures than anyone can guess, I assure you."
Linette laughed, hysteria winning out in shrill, hideous giggles that racked her body even as she shook her head. She had no idea what the woman was going on about, but knew how it must seem to find a girl beaten and naked in an alley, even one stuffed with dead men. The lady eyed her somberly and grasped her by the upper arms, pulling her into a slouched sitting position. Sure enough, a layer or two of Linette's skin remained frozen to the cobbles, and the harsh sting of cold air on raw flesh sobered her more than a smack could've done.
"No," she managed to croak in broken English, voice harsh and ragged. It bled, her voice, while no other part of her seemed to, "No, they...killed m'brother."
"Ah," the lady looked down at her hands, which were busy undoing the brass buttons of her riding jacket. "Then we must find him."
To Linette's horror, the lady settled the warm coat over her own filthy shoulders. She meant to protest, she did, but the garment was lined with fleece and already warm from the woman's body. It smelled faintly of cinammon and something else, something that reminded her of smoke. Only when the lady stood and helped her to her feet did Linette realize how tall she was, as tall as any man she'd ever fought. Two paces, at least! The arm she wrapped around Lynn's waist was strong as banded steel, seeming to support her with little effort. She found herself leaning into that arm, only half-walking as they picked their way around steaming pools of blood.
In the grisly mess of dismembered bodies, Luca was unique in his wholeness. But for the knife in his back and glazed stare, he could almost have been mistaken for a living, unconscious man. The first man Linette killed, the one she'd gotten with her teeth, had fallen over him, half his jaw and most his throat torn away. The lady released Linette to haul the body off, tossing him to one side as though he weighed less than a bundle of laundry. Without her steadying arm, Linette fell to her hands and knees, close enough to touch her brother but unable to work up the nerve.
His skin had gone waxy, lips blue. The trickles of blood from his mouth and nose had dried nearly black, making him look all the paler. She stared at his face without any of the consuming rage that had driven her berserk. There was nothing to feel but shock, disbelief that he could really be dead. That she'd let it happen, just like that. Linette felt numb, through and through, as numb to reality as to the bite of frozen cobbles beneath her knees.
The lady's hand settled on her shoulder, warm and smelling of that spicy smoke. "There's no sin in grief," she murmured. Something in the timbre of her voice suggested that she'd bowed her head. "Nor weakness. Rather, I think our tears honor the dead."
"Honor," Linette repeated blankly, "I...honored him." She just hadn't listened to him, not when it mattered.
"Then tell him now," a sad smile tinged the lady's voice, "His spirit can't have gone far."
The thought of Luca lingering in this place, whether bound by violent death or his constant concern for her, broke something in Linette. It fractured in her throat, fragile as the first rime of winter ice. She threw her head back and cried, ragged howls of grief as ugly and raw as her laughter had been. She cried as she hadn't for her father, or her mother, or any of the siblings she'd been too young to care for, as she had not cried in all her memory. She cried for having taken lives, though not for the lives she'd taken, for the impossible killing she'd done and how swiftly she'd ended her own life along with theirs. But mostly she cried for Luca, who had never had the sense to watch his own back when he could have been watching hers.
Somewhere in the storm of her mourning the lady dropped to her knees and put her arms around Linette's cloaked shoulders, nestled her close and rested her chin atop the girl's matted hair. No one had held her so since her mother died, and Linette cried for that, too. She became aware of the lady humming under her breath, a soft, repetetive murmur that cut through the grief to warm the very marrow of her bones:
"I am darkness and light, the shadow hunter and king of the sun.
My claws hold the earth, my tongue tastes the sky.
I am steadfast and strong, compassionate and caring.
I am tiger, and my words are pure."
"Remember," Luca cautioned, "We got no support here. This isn't the Bowery."
Linette looked around Division Street, at its slanted tenements, trash-choked gutters, soot-frosted piles of slush and gray-washed streets, all identical to the slum she called home.
"Couldn't tell for lookin' at it."
"Don't mistake me a'purpose, girl," her brother growled, bopping the crown of her skull with the meaty side of his fist. "Keep your head, for the love of God."
She grunted and fell back a pace, letting him take point as they stepped off the street and down a side-alley. The path quickly became a warrenous run, dark as twilight despite the watery noontime sun. The buildings here leaned ponderously agaist one another, blocking all but a few thin inches of sky. Well, at least they'd kept the slush from piling up and blocking the route alltogether. She and Luca weren't locals, they'd have a hard enough time finding the appointed place without having to climb mounds of dirty snow.
Trouble was, nobody back in the Bowery would fight her, not anymore. She'd broken too many faces, too many arms, put too many men out of work for too long. Privately, Linette always figured anyone in a match-fight accepted that same risk, but hungry wives and children didn't see it that way. She sometimes wondered if those wives were all irate because she'd gone and battered their dear spouse, or because they knew that spouse had Ideas about what a win might entitle them to.
That was neither here nor there at the moment. The point, the problem was that she couldn't make any money in her own neighborhood, and she'd never learned anything other than fighting and hawking. Luca'd gone and accepted a match from some Deitsch he knew from his factory job, so here they were on division street, her with her fists wrapped up in linen strips and him with his knife in his pocket. Seemed other streets had heard of her and wanted to see if she was some kind of freak, or if Russki men had cunts between their legs.
The alley spat them out into a kind of courtyard, no more than an intersection of four or five other runs. A score of men ringed the space, crowded up against the walls in knots. Most wore patched jackets and caps pulled low over their ears, but some had draped their coats over crates or barrels to perch off the cold ground. Tenement windows overlooked the space, but most were boarded up against the chill. There'd be no free seats this afternoon.
Luca stepped forward to talk to his Deitschman, a stooped man with overdeveloped shoulders and bandy legs. Her brother tugged deferentially at his hat, but his back was straight and his jaw was set. Linette didn't bother trying to listen in; she was far more interested in the mutters and whispers passed between the spectators. She didn't speak their language, but had no trouble interpreting the leers, the sneers or the scoffs. Well, let them laugh. She'd prove herself in blood soon enough.
The Deitsch stepped aside and gestured to one of the seated men, who set his flask aside and climbed to his feet. Linette pegged him at five foot nine, with arms like an ox-drover and a torso to match. A quick sniff confirmed her guess; he stunk of the stock yards and the animals he worked with. He was probably faster than people took him for, fast enough to avoid getting gored. So, quick and strong. Well, she had her advantages too.
Luca shook hands with the Deitschman and rejoined her, pocketing a handful of coins. Linette saw the spectators watch his hands, and made a note to watch their trail on the way home.
"Got the measure of the man?" Luca asked, chancing that none of these men spoke their tongue, either.
"Da."
"Good. Usual rules. You go soon as I step out."
Linette nodded and shrugged out of her jacket. She wore boys' clothes any given day of the week, though skirts were warmer in winter. Despite their differing neighborhoods and backgrounds, she and the drover were identically dressed in brown wool pants and no-color cotton shirts. His was sleeveless under straining suspender straps, while she paused to roll her sleeves past the elbow. They both wore rude shoes of stiff brown leather, though she doubted he had room to stuff his with insulating bits of newsprint. They had perhaps half a minute to size each other up before both moderators left the unofficial "circle."
The drover shifted his weight to the balls of his feet and raised his arms, elbows close to the chest, boxer to the core. Linette doubted he was trying to deceive her by putting that style on display. He looked at her the way they all did, with blind confidence in his eventual victory. No, he wouldn't see a need to play games. She held up her own hands, extended a ways in front of her, fingers splayed and wrists loose. They circled one another, and she was not surprised when he opened with a straight jab for her chin.
She reckoned he was pretty fucking surprised when she ducked to the side, grabbed his arm in both of hers as though it were a flagpole and swung her slight weight up, the nail-studded heel of her boot lashing out to catch the corner of his jaw. She released his arm at the apex of her swing, tucking into a roll that carried her to the edge of the circle while her opponent staggered away. She'd known the kick to be solid and saw that now in the slight glaze to his eyes. He spat blood and raised a hand to touch the ragged gashes on his cheek, where nail heads tore stubbled flesh. The indifference faded from his eyes, replaced by bleak red rage.
He rushed her, but she dove between his legs and whirled with corkscrew precision, the momentum of her turn lending extra strength to the fist she planted in his kidney. When the drover grunted and keeled over, she lept onto his back and pummeled his head with fierce blows from both elbows and fists. He staggered around like a bull afflicted with ants, scrabbling over his shoulders for a grip on her shirt or hair. It was only a matter of time before his fingers closed on her braid, and then he had all he needed to pull her over his head.
Luckily for her, he was too dumb to keep the hold, too angry to do anything but dash her against the cobblestones. The fall knocked the breath from her lungs, but she'd cushioned her head with her arms and was aware enough to roll towards the stomp he'd aimed at her head. She wrapped herself around his braced leg and sank her teeth into the meat of his calf.
The drover bellowed and fell, balance all fouled up by the girl behind his knees. He hit the ground thrice as hard as she had but without the sense to save his skull. Quick as an alley cat, Linette clambered up his body to straddle his ribcage, grinding bony knees into his hanging ribs as she rained punches down on his face. His features became less recognizeable with every hit, nose and cheeks and chin slowly becoming an amorphous mass of flesh and splintered bone. Her own knuckles shattered under repeated impact, but Linette couldn't care less. She'd done what Luca'd warned her against; she'd gone and lost her sense, and with it all perception of the specators. Their angry cries fell on deaf ears.
Luca's warning shout fared no better.
Someone hit her over the head from behind. With what, she didn't know, but it drove splinters into her scalp and dashed her to the stones like a discarded egg. Her vision went completely black, then purple, then yellow with vivid blue traceries of veins. Was the roaring in her ears the rush of her own blood or the shouting of the crowd? She didn't know, but she intended to find the motherless piece of shit who'd struck her down and feed him his own feet, so help her God. Feebly, she rolled onto her stomach and levered herself up, managing to rise as far as her knees. Blood ran down her face and neck, streaming from her split scalp. The warmth of it helped bring her around, but did nothing to clear the fog from her eyes.
"Lynn!"
She cast about for Luca, recognized him as a pale blur with a shock of blonde hair and groped in his direction. There were too many legs between them, pressing towards her fallen opponent or her brother. Luca grappled with someone, clocking them right on the point of their chin. Linette felt a thrill of victory as her brother's opponent went down, a thrill that quickly curdled.
"Luca, behind!"
She saw another man come up behind him, saw an arm rise, saw metal glint in the filtered sunlight, saw just where it would fall. She bayed a warning and threw herself towards him, knowing it wouldn't be enough.
It wasn't.
Luca grunted in surprise, back arching even as he crashed to his knees. He made one futile reach for the knife between his shoulder blades, but couldn't bring his fingers to bear on the hilt. Blood began to foam at his lips as he sagged forward, toppling onto his face.
Linette mewled low in her throat and scrabbled across the remaining cobbles, able only to scoot on her knees. One of the men laughed and seized her by her hair, dragging her the rest of the way to throw her down within arms' reach of her brother. Her assailant planted a foot on her back and yanked on her braid, torquing her head so that she could see Luca's face.
He still lived. He'd struck his head when he fell, so that blood oozed from his temple and bubbled from his mouth with every shallow breath. His eyes flicked from side to side as though he'd found himself in a trap, but he didn't seem to see her. There was no pain on his face, just a look of incredulous shock.
"Luca," she croaked. "Luca, look at me. Spasiba, look at me..."
For all her begging, he simply looked through her, past her, until the last breath rattled out of his lungs and his eyes glassed over. As she searched his vacant stare for any flicker of her brother, she felt a tug at her suspenders. Someone was hard at work pulling her trousers over her hips.
A tide of disbelief washed over her. There was no grief, no shock, only anger, keen and piercing. Who were they to strike her down from behind like cowards? Who were they to mob an outnumbered man and force his sister to watch him die? Who were they to think to rape her?! They were men and men only. Not gods, not angels or devils, just pitiful humans, huddling in back alleys and tenement houses.
They were pathetic. Their weakness offended her. It offended the world.
With the rage came strength, a wellspring of it from deep in her gut. Squirming, surging, Linette twisted her body around and lunged for her would-be rapist's neck. Her teeth sank into the soft flesh on either side of his windpipe, piercing skin and muscle with ease. The man's squeal swiftly became a gurgle as her jaws crushed his throat like an implacable vise. His blood flooded her mouth, drowning her, but she would not let go no matter how he clawed at her. Her world narrowed to the necessity of this kill, excluding the startled screams of the other men and the pain that wracked her body.
When his struggles stopped, she found herself standing over him on all fours, blood dripping from her maw. She licked her lips clean and raised a massive paw to her mouth to polish the crimson away. Shocked silence filled the alley, punctuated by the sharp scent of urine and voided bowels. Linette raised her head and glanced around at the frozen men, aware that her perception had somehow become closer to the ground. Her head no longer bothered her much and her vision had sharpened beyond all wishes. A pleased rumble filled her chest, but the satisfaction did not dull her rage. They were all accomplices to Luca's death, and so they would pave his way.
Revenge roared from her, shaking the surrounding tenements to their rickety foundations. Linette moved like liquid, like fire and water and wind made one quicksilver element, and the men fell before her like tress in a flood. She cracked their skulls between her teeth, shook them like ragdolls 'til their necks snapped and gutted their bellies with vicious kicks of her hind legs. They died screaming, praying to their God, learning at last what she had recently realized: That they were only men, and men died with ease.
Elation filled Linette to the brim, such that she nearly danced on their remains. She wasn't done here, she couldn't be done! She had too much drive left, too much of this desire to drag down those men who thought themselves more than cringing beasts. She turned to the nearest alleyway, bristling with purpose. With these new, sharper senses, finding her way out of the warren would be child's play.
She'd taken no more than two steps when a shadow detached itself from the alley wall and slammed her to the ground. Linette tried to flip onto her back and rake at the attacker with her claws, but teeth sank into the thick ruff of fur and skin behind her neck. She barely had time to squawk before it gave her a shake, followed by another and another until she could no longer tell up from down, left from right. The enormous shadow flung her aside, bunched itself up and pounced on her, all but flattening her to the cobbles. The world took two sharp hops to the left, tilted, then slid back into place with a soft "pop."
"There, now," someone clucked, "That will be quite enough of that."
Though her vision swam and her head spun and she could scarcely breathe past the weight on her chest, Linette squinted up at the person who'd quite neatly pinned her. Her eyes focused slowly on the face hovering over her own.
This, she thought, is the most beautiful person.
A woman of indeterminate age, surely not so old as forty yet not so young as twenty five, perched on Linette's ribcage as though sitting sidesaddle. She was dressed for hunting, certainly, bundled up in a heavy riding coat of forest green brocade. Beneath it she wore a buttoned dress of yellow wool over snowy linen, the sort Lynn could only dream of feeling against her skin. Lace spilled over her collar and cuffs, and the pointed toes of leather riding boots peeped below the hem of her dress, where she'd crossed her ankles. Her face was like an inverted teardrop, all wide forehead and delicate chin above and below a doll's nose and painted china mouth. There was something exotic about her eyes, agate-green with oddly upturned corners and artfully painted on shadows. They shone, those eyes, against skin brown-gold as bottled honey, not the milky white Linette would've expected from such a fine lady. Even her hair was lighter than her skin, all suntouched amber done up in beautifully coiffed waves. Lynn's fingers itched to touch that hair, but the woman's smokey stare kept her hands pinned at her sides, which was for the best, as she was sure her calloused hands would only snag and ruin the updo.
She'd never gawped so hard at anyone in her life, would've stared at this person even if the woman's hands, long-boned and browned as the rest of her, weren't pinning her down by the shoulders. But maybe the numbness wasn't all in her brain; the cobbles were so cold that they burned like coals against her bare skin, adhering to her hide so she was like to leave most of it behind once the woman let her up. It came to Linette, all in a flash, that she was naked, that most of the bones in her hands were broken , that she'd just killed a man with her teeth.
That Luca was dead.
The thought sent her twisting, slewing about not to throw the lady off but to look for her brother. But even if she'd been free to stand, she wouldn't have known where to begin; the intersection looked like the scrap room in a charnel house, all spilled guts, severed limbs and fat organs exposed and shining. Her wildest imagination couldn't suggest how this might've happened, though she remembered --dimly-- attacking these men, throwing herself into them, tearing them down like cattle with her fangs and claws and cruel, liquid strength.
My mind's snapped, Linette thought, hysteria bubbling up beneath leaden exhaustion. That was it, surely: she'd gone off her head, went berserk, found a knife on one of the men and... She turned away from the carnage, seeking answers from the only other living person in the alley. The poor lady must have stumbled on the mess and thought her a victim. She really ought to warn her to run, before the crazy came back and drove her to sink her teeth into that dark throat. Her mouth worked soundlessly, but the lady only smiled and slid off Linette's chest to kneel beside her.
"You've not gone mad, however you might feel," she cooed, smoothing blood-caked hair away from Lynn's cheek as though she were a child, "What happened was very real. Were you attacked? Molested? There's no shame in that. Rape has woken more of us to our true natures than anyone can guess, I assure you."
Linette laughed, hysteria winning out in shrill, hideous giggles that racked her body even as she shook her head. She had no idea what the woman was going on about, but knew how it must seem to find a girl beaten and naked in an alley, even one stuffed with dead men. The lady eyed her somberly and grasped her by the upper arms, pulling her into a slouched sitting position. Sure enough, a layer or two of Linette's skin remained frozen to the cobbles, and the harsh sting of cold air on raw flesh sobered her more than a smack could've done.
"No," she managed to croak in broken English, voice harsh and ragged. It bled, her voice, while no other part of her seemed to, "No, they...killed m'brother."
"Ah," the lady looked down at her hands, which were busy undoing the brass buttons of her riding jacket. "Then we must find him."
To Linette's horror, the lady settled the warm coat over her own filthy shoulders. She meant to protest, she did, but the garment was lined with fleece and already warm from the woman's body. It smelled faintly of cinammon and something else, something that reminded her of smoke. Only when the lady stood and helped her to her feet did Linette realize how tall she was, as tall as any man she'd ever fought. Two paces, at least! The arm she wrapped around Lynn's waist was strong as banded steel, seeming to support her with little effort. She found herself leaning into that arm, only half-walking as they picked their way around steaming pools of blood.
In the grisly mess of dismembered bodies, Luca was unique in his wholeness. But for the knife in his back and glazed stare, he could almost have been mistaken for a living, unconscious man. The first man Linette killed, the one she'd gotten with her teeth, had fallen over him, half his jaw and most his throat torn away. The lady released Linette to haul the body off, tossing him to one side as though he weighed less than a bundle of laundry. Without her steadying arm, Linette fell to her hands and knees, close enough to touch her brother but unable to work up the nerve.
His skin had gone waxy, lips blue. The trickles of blood from his mouth and nose had dried nearly black, making him look all the paler. She stared at his face without any of the consuming rage that had driven her berserk. There was nothing to feel but shock, disbelief that he could really be dead. That she'd let it happen, just like that. Linette felt numb, through and through, as numb to reality as to the bite of frozen cobbles beneath her knees.
The lady's hand settled on her shoulder, warm and smelling of that spicy smoke. "There's no sin in grief," she murmured. Something in the timbre of her voice suggested that she'd bowed her head. "Nor weakness. Rather, I think our tears honor the dead."
"Honor," Linette repeated blankly, "I...honored him." She just hadn't listened to him, not when it mattered.
"Then tell him now," a sad smile tinged the lady's voice, "His spirit can't have gone far."
The thought of Luca lingering in this place, whether bound by violent death or his constant concern for her, broke something in Linette. It fractured in her throat, fragile as the first rime of winter ice. She threw her head back and cried, ragged howls of grief as ugly and raw as her laughter had been. She cried as she hadn't for her father, or her mother, or any of the siblings she'd been too young to care for, as she had not cried in all her memory. She cried for having taken lives, though not for the lives she'd taken, for the impossible killing she'd done and how swiftly she'd ended her own life along with theirs. But mostly she cried for Luca, who had never had the sense to watch his own back when he could have been watching hers.
Somewhere in the storm of her mourning the lady dropped to her knees and put her arms around Linette's cloaked shoulders, nestled her close and rested her chin atop the girl's matted hair. No one had held her so since her mother died, and Linette cried for that, too. She became aware of the lady humming under her breath, a soft, repetetive murmur that cut through the grief to warm the very marrow of her bones:
"I am darkness and light, the shadow hunter and king of the sun.
My claws hold the earth, my tongue tastes the sky.
I am steadfast and strong, compassionate and caring.
I am tiger, and my words are pure."
