She awoke, the black satin sheets adhering to her glistening and clammy skin, enshrouding her in their chill embrace. The blankets lay on the floor like shattered birds, their rumpled shapes displaying the violence with which they were thrown from her bed. Her shallow consciousness of recent awakening was now coalescing into a more solid perspective of fatigue and discomfort as her system succeeded in withdrawing from the memories which had awoken her. She felt the unfamiliar discomforts, the tenderness of her joints and sullen ache of her muscles, dragged from healing slumber by a recalcitrant and over-active mind, seemingly bent on self annihilation through sleep-deprivation.
Grumpy and less than pleased, she kicked herself free from the clinging sheets. Satin? Silk was surely more her taste, its sensuous weave more closely an echo of her own skins supernatural texture. The acrylic fibres had an unnatural affinity for her dark, smooth and now sticky skin. Sitting naked on the edge of the bed, she rubbed her slumbering muscles into a grudging life, and massaged the back of her neck in frustration. With her supple fingers, she applied more pressure to the base of her skull, massaging her tense neck muscles into a more comfortable mood. She looked back at her pillow, crushed and rumpled from her dream-bound abuse, she realised she wouldn't be sleeping again in a hurry, her mind rushed with the adrenalin of her initial fear, and now frustration. Standing, she wandered stiff-legged into the hall, wrapping herself in the bathrobe she had "conveniently" left laying over the back of her high-backed dresser-chair as she passed.
Across the hall, she wandered into her tiny bathroom, and allowing the robe to drop unceremoniously to the floor, gazing upon her bruised and torn body. The bruises now fading, the wounds all closed and forming small, strangely sensual, lines of scar tissue. Her knuckles healed to almost mahogany perfection, and her torn nails had apparently decided to return to their normal shape and color, forming beautiful half-moons that almost glowed at the ends of her fingers. Flexing her shoulder she felt only the slightest twinge of pain, and turning to see herself better in the mirror, noted that the deep scars on her back were swiftly fading into insignificance. She could barely see the traces of wings so recently torn from her body, the pinion bones removed so finally that the flesh no longer tried to remember their shape. It would be only days before there would be no visible physical evidence of her heritage, nor her past. Her scars would fade, her beauty would be repaired, and her battered frame would return to a fantastic, if not angelic - heretical thought THAT was - stature that would undoubtedly set her apart from the people she was forced to mix with.
As she watched herself in the mirror, she could feel her flesh healing, responding to her attention as she passed her gaze over her wounds. The gash along her ribs that stretched from her sternum to the base of her armpit, skirting the soft curve of her breast as it looped slowly upwards, slowly lost the redness and soreness of recent injury. The wound had already closed and begun to knit in its own time, but now under her dispassionate gaze, it faded almost completely, leaving only a tracery of slightly less pigmented skin in it's passing. She could keep that reminder of her folly should she wish, but setting her face in a shameful grimace, she forced the final markings of her battle to fade completely from her skin. Her purpose here was not changed by the loss of her winged status, and despite her own misgivings, she would not allow herself to present anything but a perfect face to those she was here to ... to help?
Physically restored, and in a much better frame of mind, drawing the robe around her restored skin as she departed the cramped room, feeling its tickle on her recently recovered nerves as she walked, she wandered to the kitchen. Standing in the doorway, looking at the pristine whiteness of the kitchen, she had a new and whimsical thought, "If I am to WALK amongst these people, why hold myself back from what they do? Why should I forgo those joys I have always forgone when I am to be ONE of these ground-walking denizens of the mundane?". And doing something she had never had the temerity to do, she made herself a coffee and sat at the white marble faced kitchen table, wrapping her long legs around the tall kitchen stool as she wandered in her mind back to the events of last night.
Where had it started? She remembered only fragments of her flight the previous evening, memories piecing together in her mind like mismatched chords in a poor symphonic recording. Where was the clarity, the crystal clarity she was so accustomed to? Was she losing that too? Her mind? Swearing inwardly she focussed more intently on her recollections. The flight downwards .. the darkened city street .. the milling about of people going about their own business .. the lights on the lamp-posts flickering about her as she watched the mundane inhabitants of this domestic jungle. A car sped by below her with a sense of urgency, she paid it no mind .. a cluster of dark forms gathered around a prone man, laying with his cheek pressed against the sticky road surface .. she felt drawn there. Blue and red lights flashing as the warmth left that prostrate figure .. cruel expressions on the faces of the lookers-on, grimaces on the faces of those who helped. A flash and a twitch, the man wasn't gone yet. She remembered dropping down until her face was only inches from his, why she was here she didn't know, he felt her presence. His eyelids flickered and he looked directly at her. How was that? She was invisible to the others! Her only focus was his eyes as he gasped and twitched on the tacky asphalt. She felt something go from her .. a mistake, an error of judgement .. a gasp behind her as another saw her .. the perpetrator of his pain? Her strength went out to him as he lay there .. then the men came. They took him away and after they had gone she stayed there, watching his spilled blood slide slowly into the debris strewn gutter as the the red and blue lights faded. What had happened?
She sipped the steaming brew as she remembered his pain, the bitter taste scalding its way over her tongue and into her mind, for as she had given him something she had taken something else from him. She remembered the relaxing of his face as the pain for him faded .. a sound behind her, and as she turned .. pain, but not his, hers! A circle of callous faces .. something missing from their eyes, some lack of animation, a dowsed spark never to be rekindled .. away from the road, the crowd of onlookers dispersing, a group of men wandering off slowly, burdened by something, her! Strangely immobile, she could not resist .. who were these men? A short traverse to an alley shrouded in shadow, "Here, it must be here, and now! It must be now!", barked a voice. That voice, so captivating .. something familiar ..
"Are you going to drink that java, or do you need help?", a voice purred into her ear, bringing her out of revery.
What? Who? Momentarily disoriented, she looked up and saw nothing.
"I said, are you going to drink that coffee, or waste it?"
"Marcheisis?", she queried, returned to the here-and-now, "Marcheisis! I can't see you, but I recognise your voice! Show yourself you bastard!", a hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth as she spoke.
A shadow seemed to condense in a brightly lit corner of the kitchen and made the stark whiteness of the room seem brighter by comparison. Stretching and extending, flowing downwards from the roof level cornice, it pooled on the bench, where, without any abruptness, like it had always been there, sat a small, mangy, black cat.
"A cat? A cat Marcheisis? Your taste is as eclectic as your motives, and as questionable as the orientation of your soul.", she raised an eyebrow in the interloper's direction, then stood to face the cat.
"So, a saucer of milk will it be then?", she queried as she casually opened the refrigerator and placed the carton of milk questioningly against her hip.
The cat stood, and with that feline fluidity that leaves the movements of all other animals looking completely graceless, stretched slowly, then sauntered over to the sit above the cupboard that held the crockery. It's tail curled around its feet and it's head gazed upon her with a serious expression, before it cocked its head and enquired with a half-purr, half-cry, "Mrrrrrow?"
Chuckling to herself, she bent to retrieve a low saucer from the cupboard and placed it on the bench before the cat. "You know, milk gives cats digestive problems", she remarked as she poured a meagre portion of milk into the saucer. The cat hissed in disagreement before bending its head and lapping at the milk with a distinctly satisfied look on its face. Placing the milk carton on the bench by the saucer she said, "Help yourself to a top up when you are ready", before turning and returning to her seat by her coffee.
She sat, knowing full well how to play this game. Marcheisis would speak to her when he/it was ready, and not before. It wanted her to ask what it was doing here, she would not give it the satisfaction, and sipped briefly at her coffee, savouring the pungent taste as she waited the cat out. No wonder humans drank so much of this black beverage! She could feel the aroma lifting out of the cup and enveloping her head, sending sweet chills down her spine as the warmth spread to her belly, she swirled a mouthful around in her mouth, unmindful of the fact that she was probably burning her tongue. What better way to celebrate her new, seemingly mundane, status than with a hot cup of what seemed the most popular drink in the Western World! The cat looked up from the empty saucer, and then strutted across the bench to take a seat on the corner nearest her.
"You could have chosen a better place to make your first mistake Katarona. That was a close thing! If you hadn't had the redoubtable me near at hand," the cat puffed its chest out and began to preen, "you wouldn't be here right now, sinning with a smile on your face!"
"It's not a sin," she stated, "and it's Kate now. I've just decided. Now what do you want, and what do you mean my first mistake? I remember so little, and such small details."
She scratched her head, ran her fingers through her perfect hair and sipped again from the coffee, mmm, she could see this coffee thing could be a lasting passion. This didn't solve her immediate concerns though, returning to a more somber mood she said, "Tell me now Marcheisis, what happened?"
The cat simply sat, looking at her, not moving. It seemed to want her to start.
"Ok, I remember only finding my target, but he was already dieing, and when I approached him, something seemed to go out of me. My will, my purpose, forgotten and lost. I saw his face and he saw me! I've not been seen before! Not even once, not even when I was careless, has a mortal seen me as he did! Who was he? No! Don't tell me yet, let me continue."
She rearranged herself more comfortably on her stool, and took another mouthful of coffee before continuing.
"It seemed some of my strength went out to him, his pain lessened, and I felt some of what he felt. I felt .. something of his pain, not all, but some. A kinship of the soul? I don't know, as I said, I've not felt that before. I was so entranced by the feeling, the pain, that I was unaware of the Others. I think they took me, did something to me, took something from me. My wings!"
She gasped, and reflexively flexed the muscles that moved her wings, or used to. The flesh of her back puckered and moved, but with nothing to hold, nothing to pull against, the muscles and tendons simply bunched up, forming ugly lumps under her skin. She turned her back on the cat, and clasped her hands to her face, the feeling that flowed through her was not one she had felt before. Uncounted time spent with wings, only to have them suddenly torn from her existence, separated from her body and to find herself suddenly bereft of her prized plumage, it was almost too much to bear. The enormity of her new situation struck her an almost physical blow, as for the first time, she realised the permanence of her disfigurement. Tears slowly crept down her face from between her tightly closed eyelids. She had been stronger than this, she had been steadfast in her strength and confirmed in her purpose, but new it all seemed too hard, too difficult and too alien. She was land-bound, a vagrant, a stranger to this new reality, out of place as a fish out of water. A creature torn from her natural habitat and flung heedless of her gasping into a new a dangerous, frightening world. In an unprecedented show of purely earthy emotion, she bowed her head and began to weep.
Hands touched her spine, warm hands, hands that touched tentatively her bunched and coiled disfigured back and massaged the twisted knots of muscle back into something resembling a normal form. The hands, hesitant at first, slowly grew more confident and comfortable, they compressed the pain, made it manageable. Stroking, sliding, those warm hands cut her off from the loneliness, gave her more than a physical relief, could it be possible that those hands knew her pain? She turned, and standing behind her, not a cat, but a man. He stood perhaps middling to tall, and while lean and lithe he had a presence about him, a stance that betrayed the hidden strength he held. His black hair, cut in a modern short style, longer on top, draped itself artistically over his pallid forehead, the memory of a short beard swathed his narrow pointed chin and thin lips with a shadow of faintest black. Altogether, a narrow and ratlike but strangely familiar face, a face that you would see in a crowd, and be intrigued by, perhaps remember, but not know. Arching softly behind him, black as night, dark as her own skin, dark as her coffee swirling before her, rose his wings. Like a gift from the God of Predatory Birds, they towered over his head seemingly flowing straight through the fabric of his velveteen shirt, which she noticed was open showing an arrogant amount of pale but remarkably well formed chest. It seemed impossible that the room was large enough, the roof high enough, to contain those mighty feathered symbols of his heritage. He stood, his hands wavering uncertainly in front of him, his wings quivering as if in the hunger for flight, unsure if his attentions were appreciated, or if She was going to to smite him for his temerity in touching her bare skin. For even bereft of her wings, She was a force to be reckoned with, even if she didn't know it right now.
"I .. I'm OK Marcheisis, now tell me what happened!", her voice, soft though it was, yet powerfully frustrated and saddened, drove him back a step or two. He sensed a faint aura of .. danger .. about her as she stood there, her frustration and sadness at her loss of control evident, fists clenched by her sides. He could have been certain he'd got through to her this time, but now he wasn't so sure.
"You've fallen .. Kate," he said, reverting back to his normal cocky and superior air, voicing her adopted name with obvious distaste. In a move sinuous in its fluidity, he seemed to both slouch and glide back to the seat she had just vacated, where he seemed almost to lounge, so casual was his air, wingtips brushing the floor as he reclined.
"You've lost your wings, dear", stating the obvious she thought, "and don't know what to do with yourself. Your purpose is forgotten and your mission failed. He is alive."
"Alive? He? Who? Who is alive?" she looked startled, the shadow of memory playing itself against her fogged mind, "The man! The one who was fading! He's alive?"
She felt both concerned and relieved. Relieved that the man was alive, that her strength had healed him, allowed him to extend his stay here on the Mortal Coil. Concerned for exactly the same reason, for had not her mission been to prevent anyone from saving him? Had it?
"Yes! Yes he IS alive! I can't believe you'd risk yourself for one such as that! Your folly has almost killed you, WOULD have killed you had I not come a-calling when I did!"
His wings quivered with subdued outrage at what was obviously a heresy against her purpose. His fists were clenched in front of him as he declared, "And look what it has got you! Your wings, gone! Those men had you before I even realised what was happening, and now there is Another! Another out there, elevated by the theft of your .. your .. your stupidity!"
He had never spoken to her like this before, many things she did not remember, but THAT she did remember! She framed a suitable scathing reply in her mind, before realising that he was possibly correct, and that losing her wings may have been the smallest price to pay for her failure. It was all beginning to make sense. She could recall other events, other places and times, conversations, agreements ... pacts. A job she had been sent to do, a job she had failed to complete, in fact it seemed now that she has secured it's failure by her own actions!
She had healed that man, that dieing man in the street, and he had survived when he was to have died. Not only had she forgotten her purpose at the sight of His eyes, but she had been ambushed in her moment of weakness, and her wings stolen. Now one of those who had stolen her strength had her wings, what good would that do them though? She didn't understand, it didn't make any sense in her mind. She sat for a moment, and let the facts fall into place in her mind. Her wings, the "seat" of her power, the symbols of her strength, at least so she thought until today, until she found herself bereft of their comfort, deprived of her uniqueness. Yet, still she found herself with the strength and skills she had thought were hers only by rights of her wings, still in full possession of the talents and powers she had so treasured. She hadn't tested herself yet, she hadn't really even entertained the thought that she was still "able".
Closing her eyes, forgetting for the moment that Marcheisis was even present, she gathered to herself the ability to move, to translate... She wanted to go to the place where she had been ambushed, perhaps there she could find some hint of who they were, perhaps she could at least begin to atone for whatever sin she seemed to have committed. The world warped around her, she felt the pull of the Universe as it pulled back, withdrawing itself from her interfering fingers, denying her the right to manipulate space in such a way. Now THIS had never happened before! With a wrench of will, she committed herself fully to her intent, no longer a gentle testing of herself, this was a roaring success or scathing failure situation. No room for bruised egos in this contest. An indrawn breath before her from Marcheisis went completely unheeded, he clasped his chest as though she was drawing the life from him, as perhaps she was ... The room buckled, waves of distortion spread out from her in all directions as she strained against the reality of this world. She screamed in frustration at her complete inability to haul herself across the miles between here and the sight of her mutilation.
The room snapped, with an audible retort, back into shape around her, the kitchen gleaming and sterile around her as she sank back onto the stool and stared disconsolately as her cup of coffee. It sat before her and seemed to mock her with its solidity, with its simplicity and absolute mundane-ness. In a fit of pique, she flung the ceramic mug into the sink, where it collided with the stainless-steel tap arching gracefully over the basin, and shattered into splinters. She looked down at her hands, clenched tight in her lap, unmarked and unused, and realised that she had not, in fact, used her hands to propel the mug on its fatal flight. So, she retained at least that gift.
With the detonation of the cup, and subsequent splattering of coffee across the starkness of the kitchen, Marchiesis jumped up, unfurling his wings from rest, and seemingly poised on the verge of flight or, perhaps more accurately, battle? No longer the lounging figure of disinterested youth, here was the image of avenging wrath, here the figure of contained pain, poised to lose upon the interloper a whole world of hurt and righteous anger. Face drawn taught with tension and eyes narrowed to better measure the distance between himself and his quarry, lips drawn back baring teeth which arched down to preternaturally sharp points, chin and head thrust forward in a menacing gesture. His long wings arched deeply back and low, well away from his upraised arms and clenched fists, taught with bundled sinewy muscle, not huge like a coarse ape, but fast and slender like a crouched leopard. A faint nimbus of electricity hovered around his shoulders, raising the hair on the back of his neck like hackles, the slightest hint of the coiled energy that awaited his subtlest call. He'd made the mistake of leaving himself open to her as she had briefly tested her powers, what remained of them, and had been almost drawn into her working. It was not wise for one of his kind, nor hers, to lose control of the feral powers they held, and while she was no longer his equal, and he just beginning to realise that, she could still easily draw him under her power if he was unaware or relaxed his guard for a moment.
Never before had this been an issue in their tempestuous and intermittent relationship, for never before had she been less than his equal, never before had she the possibility of coveting the powers he held. Despite the fact that he had grown to trust her, he must now reassess his opinion and watch his dealings with her, earth-bound as she was, she could still prove a dangerous adversary to an incautious entity, such as himself if he let himself be ruled by his heart, not his head. Relaxing his posture, and drawing back from the edge of murderous power he had begun to tap, he spoke.
"Jesus Christ Kate! Don't do that! You just about ripped my essence from my body! I had to shield myself, and pull myself so far back in that I almost had a heart attack when you smashed that frigging coffee mug!"
"Sorry," she said as she looked downcast and despairing at her failure, then a more determined look crept onto her face, her face hardening into that look he had learned long ago meant, "Do NOT defy me!".
"Take me there!" she demanded, "Take me to the place where it was done, take me to the alley! That's where I wanted to go!"
Taken aback, he stood a little startled at her vehemence, "Are you sure that would be ... wise?" he queried, "and so soon? Kate, you need rest ..."
"Fuck that Marcheisis! I heal! That much at least is left to me, although I hope that's not ALL, " peeved again at her new circumstance she motioned at the splattered coffee with her hand and it drained itself into the sink and disappeared.
"Well aren't we just the little blasphemer? I don't remember you being so moody before Kate, is this going to be a permanent personality fixture, or are you going to get over yourself?"
"You try being in my shoes March', see how much YOU like it! See what it does to YOUR personality! Then again, you're probably about as bad as you can get already, " she demanded before ending on a more sarcastic note.
Damn! How could he be so insensitive to her situation, then she remembered her own indifference towards the land-bound, arrogance tied to the fact that she was not so limited, except now she was ...
"Please Marcheisis, perhaps we can see what happened after you took me away, after you ... saved me. We need to start to fix this, and I can't help but feel the guilt at what I've brought upon myself, and possibly on the rest of the world as well..."
He looked at her, stunned by the fact that she was so clearly portraying her pain, her weakness, to him. He had never seen her so forlorn, not to mention the fact that she had never been required to ask for his help before. She gazed at him, her near-to-crying chestnut eyes peering out from her sad, dark face. Her hair had collapsed downwards, framing her face with its soft shadow, her downturned mouth, her flared nostrils, her wrinkled forehead, her whole expression betrayed her need. How could he refuse a call for help from a colleague such as she at a time such as this when she was so clearly in her hour of need?
"Sure," he said, "I'll take you there. But what do you expect to find out?"
"Perhaps I'll find out what they intended, perhaps I'll find out how they managed to overpower me so easily. Despite the fact that I was not at the height of my powers, I was drained, tired, exhausted from healing Him. How that happened is a mystery as well, never before have I lost control over myself to such an extent. What is it about these events? What do they all have in common that centre so around me? The answer lies there, at the site, at the alley, on the road, in the stain of the blood He spilled, in the pain recorded by the walls where I was ... defiled.
"Enough Marcheisis, let's go..."
Marcheisis stood and strode swiftly forward, determined to act once convinced of his course, enfolding her in his arms, raising his wings as if to take flight, and folding them suddenly forward, to enshroud them both in their soft embrace. The room faded from their sight, it's stark whiteness suddenly made more bleak by the absence of the incredible beings so rapidly departed.
In a motion almost too obscure to notice, another smaller shadow detached itself from a place that looked as though it had never seen the light. The shadow coalesced in the stainless metal sink, crept slyly over the shattered remains of the coffee cup, lingering over-long on the portions that have been touched by her skin, caressed by her lips, tasted by her tongue. In an almost obscene movement, the shadow waxed large and subsumed the broken mug in its inky blackness, and then it was gone. The cup remained, glistening with a new and preternatural cleanliness, all trace of Katarona gone, taken by the shadow, eaten, or merely sampled as a bloodhound traces a scent?