wanderinghamsa (wanderinghamsa) wrote in shadowlands_ic, @ 2017-08-27 20:30:00 |
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Entry tags: | biddie, zipporah bakst |
Who: Zipporah Bakst and Biddie (+ NPC!Archie, NPC!Ach)
What: Zipporah does a job for the Russians; Biddie does a job on the Russians. The follow up to this.
When: 22th August, 1888 [backdated]
Where: A warehouse in Whitechapel.
Rating: R
Warning: R (Mentions of violence. Also, actual violence.)
When two members of the Bessarabian Tigers showed up on Zipporah’s doorstep asking for a favor, her first response was one of disdain, and she took the opportunity to read them the riot act. Oh, she and her auntie and grandmother had helped bring their babies into the world and protected their places of work and worship for the last five years, but when her grandmother had collapsed and died in the market, none of the men in the neighborhood had so much as raised a finger to claim the body and take her to one of their funeral homes.
Her grandmother’s body had been sent to a goy mortician instead, and her name had been noticeably absent from prayers that Sabbath. The women of the neighborhood had been by to sit Shiva, which was something, but Zipporah had to perform the rites herself in a stranger’s funeral home instead of what her grandmother deserved -- a minyan singing her to her rest, and a community of hands cleaning, dressing, and praying over her body.
It rankled, significantly, and her temper was high enough about it that she’d kept away from Temple since, not trusting she’d keep her tongue.
So when the Tigers knocked that evening, after she’d spent her previous evening up to her elbows in blood and broken bones (and had gotten very little sleep after), her patience was thin. She gave them a lashing -- it’d been building for a few months -- and had so roundly shamed the two of them that they’d begged her forgiveness and offered, quite cowed, to make amends, which somewhat mollified her. When push came to shove, Zipporah had absolutely no scruples about using a criminal gang to press-arm a Rabbi if that’s what it took for him to do his God-given duty by her bubbe. The air had been distinctly frosty between the Bakst women and the Jewish men of the neighborhood since her grandmother’s passing; perhaps this would lead to a thaw. At the very least, there’d be some semblance of respect.
The Tigers, from what she could gather, had been approached that evening by the Odessians about a matter that required a healer, as their usual koldun'ya had emigrated recently to America to escape his gambling debts. And the Tigers, seeing an opportunity to owe a favor, decided it was worth their while to agree to help. Zipporah knew she was in Tiger territory, it was a part of life, but while she’d worked with the wives and girlfriends of several of them, this was the first time they’d come to her with official business, as it were.
The Irish had been particularly vicious this summer, so Zipporah wasn’t terribly surprised that the Russian and Jewish gangs were finding temporary common ground despite no love lost between the two. Zipporah’s father had died in a pogrom -- she wasn’t particularly enamored of the Russians -- but the offer (genuine, from what she could tell) of properly honoring her grandmother, the promise of payment, and the implication that helping them would make her life in the neighborhood easier (and what not helping might cost her), she’d sighed and grabbed her bag, and she, Ach, Biyali, and David had made their way to a warehouse on what was presumably neutral ground.
The man in question was, to say the least, a mess -- he’d been cursed, and badly, by something that was making him rot away, and he was in dire enough condition that she’d had to secure a promise from the Odessians that she would not be retaliated against should he not pull through before getting to work.
He’d gibbered throughout in broken Russian about cursed plans and a horrific creature with rows of teeth who’d eaten his partner whole, and moaned and cried and screamed a great deal as she’d worked to halt the rot. The curse was decidedly tricky, and part-way through, she managed to suss out that there was a tracking spell worked quite cleverly into the structure of it, a discovery that left her blood cold.
She’d been brought to heal, not to fight a fellow witch, or take deliberate and intentional steps to cover up a crime, and after giving it some thought, she’d kept that part of the spell intact.
She had no particular love for the Russians, after all.
She hurried, after that, and there was only so much she could do once she managed to put a stop to the rot progressing further -- damage had already been done that was beyond healing. She wrapped the wounds in dry bandages, recommending they replaced them often, and suggested that maggots ought to be used to eat away the necrotic flesh. The Odessians took the poor soul away (which she was grateful for), and David went with them, presumably to talk terms about whatever deal he wanted to hammer out given the favor they now owed him. Biyali stood by the door, keeping watch, leaving her to clean up after.
Men.
At least Ach did what he was bidden, and silently too, but her nerves were singing with worry. A thorough purification was utterly vital, however, so that whatever he had wouldn’t infect her, somehow, or be traced to her front door instead of his, and she worked as fast as she could so that they could leave free and clear.
People talked about the air of a place - good air, bad air, suspicious air, ominous air - but to Archie it was earth that did the real telling. Ashes, clay, shit, mulch, shale, loam, grime, dust, soot, mud, sand, grit, rock, peat, silt, lime, sod - how clearly and loudly the gritty mass would speak to those who’d listen. The whole ecstatic skin of world vibrated with information.
Admittedly, Archie reflected as his boot heel squelched on something particularly unappetizing, that skin was grubbier in some spots than in others.
You’d think the warehouse would be safer than the street, even when that street was akin to a tick squatting in the armpit of London. Alas, reality farted in the face of expectation once again. Archie made his peace and a mental note to have some hardy soul scrape his boots decent after this night was over. His valet was growing increasingly defeated by such requests; Archie strongly suspected he’d been looking for a new replacement soon. The poor fellows never lasted out the year, it was a damn shame. He couldn’t blame, he supposed; none of them was hired with the full knowledge of what their charge’s wardrobe had to endure.
His godmother’s errands, after all, were hard to explain to proper society. And Captain Archibald Garrick Curtis was very much proper society.
But then Archibald Curtis had begun life as a fully formed ten year old. Before that, he’d been - hungry. That was how Archie (and he was Archie now, only and forever Archie) chose to think of his life before when he thought to think of it at all. He had been hungry. It was amazing what you’d do if you’re hungry enough. What you’d let done to you.
What price a warm bed, a hot meal, and unlimited opportunities for moral ambiguity? Archie thought cheerfully. Undoubtedly his godmother had a prix fixe chart to answer the matter. All Archie had was a dead man’s name, a pistol in his one good hand, and about ten minutes to deal with the witch in his view before Biddie finished up “attending” to the would-be patrolmen outside. Archie himself had to deal with one watchful chap on the doorstep.
No point wasting any of the it, then. Archie raised the pistol and stepped into the room.
Only to pause at the sight of nobody who looked like his target.
“Bugger,” he said.
Ach was typically marked by his placidity, his steadiness, his very nearly eerie stillness; he walked ploddingly behind Zipporah when she was out, the bags of shopping swinging from his arms the most animated thing about him, and more often than not, he was sitting in the corner, as calm and as still as a potted plant.
He’d spent the last few hours in the company of two criminal gangs without so much as a ripple across that smooth surface, and, indeed, his lack of a response to the Odessians had been a prerequisite for her entering the building to begin with -- the threat they posed, while possibly existential, was not immediate.
When the man entered the warehouse brandishing a pistol, however, Ach moved, and fast -- very nearly impossibly so, given his bulk and size -- and was upon him before Zipporah had a chance to turn and face him.
The pistol gave way with a crumpling sound and the man was pushed against the wall, one massive hand pressing against him to hold him. Zipporah raised a hand of her own to lower Ach’s fist, finishing the last few words of her prayer of cleansing as she did so.
“He only just left,” she replied, calmly, despite the fact that her heart was pounding madly in her chest.
There were unique and controversial pleasures in being put into the wall as if someone mistook you for a brick. Archie couldn’t say he was enjoying the bruising delights of the moment. He was also suspecting, by the tingling rush of warding cracking under his coat, that this someone was something.
She’s going to love this, he thought. His godmother was going to be significantly less thrilled about the bruising on his shoulder blades - and the fact that Kramarov was gone.
“Lovely,” Archie grit out. “Don’t suppose he left a forwarding address? Calling card perhaps?”
Zipporah brushed her still damp hands on her skirt (she’d decided to burn her apron), and raised an eyebrow.
“Presumably,” she said, tipping her head, “you can follow him readily enough,” she shrugged noncommittally. “I kept that part of the spell intact. If you find him, it’s on his own head. Will you leave if my brother releases you?”
She started shoving supplies into her large leather bag. “He does not particularly like when guns are pointed in my general direction,” she said, mildly.
“Nothing would please me more, madam,” Archie said, his cheek still compressed. “But it’s not my call to make.”
“How true,” said a voice from the doorway.
It was a familiar voice but refurbished in a soft-pressed Boston accent. Its owner was likewise remodeled. Gone was the church collar and threadbare hat, secondhand gloves and mended boots; in their place was a dark gentleman’s coat and darker gloves, a gentleman’s darkly polished boots, and a soft, dark hat sitting on very short, very blonde hair.
One of the gloves dripped ever so slightly on the floor. It was not raining outside.
“I advise that your brother release my companion, Miss Bakst. And that he does it very, very quickly,” the former Miss Carver added.
There was a heartbeat where Zipporah’s shock and surprise made her slip -- the unexpected appearance of the no-longer mousy Miss Carver now bristling with menace and power, the spellwork hitting her like a slap in her face, and the sharp smell of fresh blood and death in the air led to a moment of reflexive panic. While a man with a gun and a few protections about him was nothing, this screamed threat, danger, and before she could process anything beyond an animal instinct of NO, Ach dropped the man like a sack of flour and ran full-tilt at Miss Carver, swinging.
For Archie, the moments that followed were...murky. There was the sudden release and awkward slide to the ground. There was the reflexive awe-surprise-alarm at seeing someone--something--move so fast. There was the alarm on the young witch’s face. There was his godmother’s hand rising negligently to backhand her opponent. There was the flash of surprise when the would-be crushing slap met unexpected strength. There was the gritty scrape of his own voice, yelling “Golem!”
Biddie's expression went from surprise to wonder even as she thrust her shoulder into the man's stomach and heaved upward. There was a sound like a wet clay being hit with 300 hundred pound hammer.
Which was, Archie thought, a nearly mathematical comparison. Then again, he was possibly concussed.
Biddie on the other hand, was feeling wonderful. Admittedly the evening had started bleakly, what with having to track down the rat-hearted thieves to a trash heap of a warehouse and then having to waste one half of a pair of excellent gloves on disciplinary actions. In addition she was clearly going to have to a long, loud talk with Archie regarding self-awareness and the perils of worrying his guardian.
But now there was - this. Drilling her elbow a few inches further into the golem’s--!!!--hard gut, Biddie glanced up and grinned at the placid, beautiful face.
“A sheynem dank,” Biddie told him. Thank you. She was still smiling when she fisted one hand in the golem's jacket and pitched the whole mass of him towards the witch girl.
Zipporah hadn’t wanted to make any enemies tonight -- that, and she had heard of what happened to the golem at Prague, knew that reasserting her control was vital. He careened towards her, stumbling and lurching sideways as he re-gathered his footing in an attempt to continue his assault and avoid crashing into her, and as he twisted back around, she gathered the fullness of her intent and will and connection to him, and cried out a command.
He froze, off-balance enough to crumple with a resounding whump, landing at her feet, and she stood, wide-eyed, hair and skin crackling with the energy circulating around the room, breathing heavily, beyond relieved that it had actually worked.
She didn’t trust herself enough to lift the order just yet, so she left him there for the time being; should there be a need, another word would (hypothetically) send him silently roaring back into the fray, but her lack of control earlier had shaken her, and she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to hold him back a second time.
Biddie watched the golem fold at the witch’s feet and felt a shadow over her delight. When he’d come at her without a word from the witch, she’d thought--well, no matter. But this one was a true golem: protection and obedience personified.
How...deferential, she thought, disappointed. Still, it was food for thought.
Archie was regaining his feet. Biddie moved towards him, her eyes never sliding off the witch and her tchatchka. When she held out her hand, the young man didn’t hesitate in grasping the bloody glove with his hand. His “troubled” hand, Biddie noted, the mixed feel of stuffed leather and real fingers oddly bracing. It made her haul him upright with a touch more force than was necessary, and the sense of pleasure at discovering the nature of “Mr. Bakst” dimmed slightly further. Biddie had protection obligations of her own.
The energy swamping the room was grating Biddie’s nose like a bad pinch of snuff. With Archie safely on his feet, Biddie could afford to smile at the witch with pleasant civility.
“I’m sorry to find you in this position, Miss Bakst,” she said in lucid Yiddish. “Especially when you seemed previously so practical in understanding when not to get involved in unpleasant affairs. Assisting someone like Kramarov and at the behest of a street gang, no less…That’s very unpleasant indeed, zeisele.”
Zipporah raised her hands in a placating gesture, her capacity to be surprised by Miss Carver having burnt clean through at her first appearance. She replied in kind. “You see where I live,” she said, simply. “It was a favor for a favor, and when approached by my neighbors, it would make my life difficult to turn them down, and I knew little of the circumstances of the man’s injury.” She raised her chin. “I kept the tracking spell intact. I was asked to heal, not to protect, and I have no quarrel with you.”
She paused. “It was… it was delicately done,” she added. “Quite elegant, really. And if I’d known he was working against your employer, I would have handled it differently.”
Her eyes drifted to the dark stain left on the man’s glove after being hauled to his feet. “The man who was at the door,” she said. “Is he still living?”
“I didn’t check,” Biddie said honestly.
“He was,” Archie said. He let go of Biddie’s hand. “Is. I only stunned the poor fellow, he’ll wake up in a few hours.”
“A professional colleague, Miss Bakst?” Biddie asked. “Or is he another neighbor? I’m afraid some of the latter seemed in the mood to relocate suddenly. Either way, you certainly won’t be seeing them around as often.”
From the back, Archie gave his godmother a sharp look at that, but kept his mouth shut.
“I do appreciate you preserving the tracker,” Biddie continued. “But just so, I think you can respect the impasse at hand. You cannot afford true neutrality, I can’t allow interference. We could supposedly settle things by having your brother and me tear off each other’s limbs. But that wouldn’t really settle much. So. We are stuck.”
“Not necessarily,” Archie said. He touched his godmother’s shoulder with his clean, good hand; the flesh beneath the coat was oak-solid, the fabric cold as if unworn. “Madam, there are compromises.” His gaze darted towards Zipporah: respectful, encouraging.
“Miss Bakst operates as an independent agent,” Archie said in his conciliatory tone. “Fair enough. Our employer,” he was clearly going to have to ask about that later, “is much the same. Additionally, It would be grossly unprofessional to punish her for making deals to guard her interests - and her position in the community. I am correct, miss, in that refusing these fellows would earn you a great deal of trouble? Ugly trouble, no less.”
Zipporah knew a life preserver being thrown when she saw it. “In a word, yes,” she said. “I would not have aided the Russians who crossed you were it not for the direct request of the people whose territory I live in, my own people. Their displeasure would make life excessively difficult for me.”
Their untimely death would also make life no end of awkward, given the complicated tangle of neighborhood politics -- she planned on yelling at David rather thoroughly for being an idiot and extending himself too far if he managed to extricate himself without facing Miss Carver’s wroth, and she was very glad she didn’t have to face Biyali’s mother, who was a veritable force of nature.
While it was distinctly better than an all out fight, she felt a sinking in her stomach at suggestion of a ‘compromise,’ and what it might cost her. She was on her back foot, and while the thought of begging for mercy or serving at the behest of yet another interest rubbed her raw, she’d tasted the woman’s power and strength, and did not care to cross her. And while the man seemed reasonable enough, she knew she was outnumbered in this particular negotiation; his loyalties were clear, and her ally was a silent partner, currently crumpled on the floor.
“Thus we have it,” Archie said, the smile in his voice as shiny and polished as if he was charming an investor or selling press, “Miss Bakst was making the best of an uncomfortable situation. Not so different from our attempts to remedy our situation with Russians, correct, Madame?”
He tightened his clutch on Biddie’s shoulder. She resisted the urge to pinch his wrist.
“Let us call our little collision tonight an unexpected opportunity for cooperation,” Archie said. He really had been spending too much time with the publicists, Biddie thought. “None of the ruffians we encountered tonight need be made aware that Miss Bakst--may I call you Zipporah, miss? It has such a wondrous intonation--none of them know she respected our efforts as she did by preserving the tracker. It would not be hard to ensure that none of them finds out otherwise either. Not after Madame...reasons with them.”
Biddie tried to calculate how much room she had in the “special” pantry before chiding herself not to get distracted by the idea. Archie knew how to dangle temptation.
“Indeed,” her precious little devil continued, “I see no reason for any of Zipporah’s employers to be aware of her meeting the third party, as it were. If the beautiful miss is willing to keep tonight’s meeting to herself…we can certainly respect her courtesy.” Archie released Biddie’s shoulder and spread his hands in a friendly gesture of so we have it.
Wait for it, Biddie thought. Wait for--
“And if in the future you encounter any magics as you did tonight, we would certainly be glad to clarify the matter. Once notified of such an overlap, of course,” Archie said to Zipporah. “To prevent a repeat of this unfortunate misunderstanding.”
There he was, then. Her darling, darling, snake-hearted boy…
“Did you make him?” Biddie asked. Her voice was a marked contrast to Archie’s jovial, snake oil ease. The Yiddish didn’t warm it. “You call him brother - did you make him yourself?”
“I did,” Zipporah replied, tipping her chin, a flash of pride slipping across her face despite herself. “I sculpted him on the riverbank with my own two hands and prayed to God to give me aid, and He answered.” It felt wrong to have him lying there, so inert, rather than where he belonged -- at her back -- close enough to touch -- she itched with it, but kept her tongue; she didn’t want to have his movement seen as a threat, and there was a part of her who wanted his return to her side to be something private -- as silly as it sounded to voice out loud, she wanted to respect his dignity, to make amends for what she’d had to do, and that was best left for the two of them once they were alone.
“These terms,” she said, quietly, slipping back into English. “I am willing for to keep my silence regarding this encounter. When you say ‘notify,’ and you say ‘clarify matters’...” Zipporah frowned, and shrugged. “Should I happen to encounter such spellwork again as a part of my work, as a professional courtesy, I can attempt to notify you as soon as I would be able to do so within reason, yes. Assuming you provided me the means. And would there be anything I might do that I would anticipate may result in… overlap, I would inform you of it, and expect a similar courtesy should you encounter it.”
It wasn’t terrifically likely, but really, it was more a chance to at least give the appearance of equal footing. She looked sideways at Biddie in a quick, darting glance. “However, I would wish to clarify a few things now, if I may.”
She raised an eyebrow. “In a similar scenario, say. Short of letting you know what I have encountered after the fact, would you have an absolute expectation of inaction? Of withdrawal? I cannot imagine I would have access to a telephone in a place such as this,” she said, looking over at Archie evenly, “and while I could ask more specific questions beforehand next time, there may be a situation where I would not know what I faced until I got there. And, as you put it so well, I came because I faced consequences for not agreeing to provide assistance.”
“You have a six foot mythical automaton lapping your heels like a poodle and gangs court your favor. This is despite being young enough to require ribbons and operating from Whitechapel.” Biddie’s tone was dry as flint. “Young lady, I find it hard to believe you would be--could be--forced to rush so as to be unable to send notice.”
“Nonetheless, your trouble is understandable,” Archie rushed in. He stepped forward with a small card suddenly, almost magically, in hand. “Please, allow me--us--to offer easier means. There’s no courier or telegraph office in London that won’t accept this. At no charge to you, of course.”
The card was a strange, unripe shade of green with a colorless embossed logo in the corner. The blocky script read: MPC, special division.
“Please, Zipporah.” The young man’s eyes were blisteringly frank. “Let us be colleagues on this.”
Colleagues was a rather polite way of putting it, but there had been an…acknowledgement of sorts from Miss Carver, and an absence of absolute demands placed upon her, which made Zipporah slightly less inclined to bristle. She relaxed the set of her jaw, and after a beat, took the card with a slight nod of her head.
“You have me at a disadvantage, sir,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “I have met Miss Carver already, and you seem familiar with me, but I do not believe we had the opportunity of a proper introduction as of yet.” She slipped the card into a pocket.
The fact he knew her full name could be taken several ways, but she chose to hold onto it as yet another acknowledgement from the mysterious (and more than a little terrifying) woman who seemed carved out of marble beside him. Clearly, she’d been worth mention, which was something.
Archie kept his face smooth at the “Miss Carver” because whatever hell that freshly boiled slop was, it was clearly Biddie’s to deal with. He tried to avoid his godmother’s alternative “guises” whenever allowed to; too many of them tended to simper. Plus the costumes were woeful.
“Captain Curtis,” he said, all but clicking his heels in salute. “Archibald Curtin, though, please just Archie would do. I’d comment on this being a pleasure to meet you, but considering the surroundings…” He gestured ruefully. “Honestly, as delighted as I am to meet you, and your amazing companion, I do wish it was somewhere without an unconscious chap by the door. Terribly sorry about that, by the by. He’s not also family, I hope?”
“If you wish to shake hands and play friends, then set a time,” Biddie said sharply. “There’s still Kramarov to see to. He’s near and still alive enough to talk.”
Her expression made it clear whose fault that was. Archie’s friendly demeanor grew slightly strained.
“Alas Madame’s sense of duty is ever demanding,” he said. “Zipporah. Miss Bakst, may I call on you?”
“You may,” Zipporah replied. “Miss Carver,” she added, nodding, figuring the less she delayed the woman from her quest, the better.
She only hoped David was smart enough to not linger, for his sake.
“Good night, zeis--Miss Bakst,” Biddie said, turning to the door. “I wish you a safe and pleasant evening. Both of you.”
Behind her back, Archie gave Zipporah a hearty and slightly Gladiatorial thumbs up.
As the pair of them swept from the room, Zipporah waited for a beat, her heart pounding in her ears, and her muscles aching from the careful dance she’d just had to endure -- a dance she’d come out of relatively unscathed, but a close enough call to make her nervous.
Her first thought was for Ach, and as she looked down at him, he stood, a little ungainly. She reached for his arm, steadying him, despite the fact that she couldn’t possibly be of much use given his bulk.
She fluttered around him some, brushing the dirt off of the back of his jacket, and then, her blood still high, she flung her arms around his broad shoulders and whispered an apology, trembling a little, and kissed his smooth, impassive cheek.
“Biyali will need looking after,” she said, patting his arm. “Let us bring him in.”