Serpent and Maiden
Who: Elfleda, Rhiannon When: Night, Present Where: Outside Jean, Nevada Ratings: Yuck Factor
Jean, Nevada: A popular fuel stop for motorists taking interstate 15 from Nevada to California. Former site of the Gold Strike Hotel and Gambling Hall, now an acquisition of the Terrible’s conglomerate. Home to a quarter-mile drag strip that once hosted commissioned races of the National Hot Rod Association.
Population zero.
Jean had the dubious distinction of being a commercial town, meaning that no one actually lived there. People commuted in for work, used the area’s only post office, or gassed up at the world’s largest gas station -- ninety-six pumps! -- and kept driving. It was an excellent place to grab a snack.
If one was to turn off I-15 onto Sandy Valley Road and head northwest, they would find an occasional dirt path skewing towards the vast nothingness between Jean and the foothills of the Bird Spring Range. The land had all the charm of a terrestrial exoplanet, parched and yellow-gold, blistering by day and frigid by night. Still, a few tough-minded, privacy-seeking people had carved out homes for themselves. Their minimalist driveways led to long, low houses clustered under trees. Some had private hangars for prop planes and ATVs. A group of long-haul truckers shared a compound; their semi-trucks created a makeshift fence around the property. Their unexpected neighbor was a ramshackle campground that was either a nudist colony or a cult.
The longest driveway led to a double-wide trailer with papered windows and a 1980 Chevy Malibu. The people who lived there were night owls. They rose from their beds after sunset, piled four-deep into the car, and drove to some city or the other, returning before the sun painted the horizon an inky blue. Some nights, only two of them would leave. They’d take a trip up to the Chevron station and come back with a spare vehicle and a third person riding in the trunk. The person always made a racket on their way into the trailer but the noise didn’t last long, and after a while the property would fall into its usual quiet. The few hours after a feeding, when vampiric appetites were sated and a human body lay hardening on a corner mattress, were an excellent time for a person to creep up the winding driveway for a visit to the trailer.
Just after 5:00 a.m. there was a noise at the rusted back door as an inside occupant threw a hip and shoulder into opening it. The aluminum thunked, bowed, and took a wide swing over the ground. A coop of chickens bawked and flapped. A snake came out of its hiding spot in the unstable cinder block step as Rhiannon used it. “Shhhiii--!” She spotted it at the last minute and jumped over the tail. Adrenaline carried her deep into the backyard. She wasn’t in the mood to play ‘identify what bit my ankle.’ She coughed, mopped blood out of her nose and spat on the dirt. Oh, that hurt. The hunter paced and tried to get a good breath. It wasn’t easy. Sometimes when she got hit, Rhiannon expected her lungs to heave a final puff of oxygen and quit. She inspected her hand. A ring had bent and cut off partial circulation to her finger. The brunette shook it and began to twist and pull on the jewelry.
It wasn’t just that the animals had ceased to make noise.That was something which could go unnoticed, even down to the level of insects refusing to chirp and sing, like nocturnal desert birds. It was the reason that was happening which couldn’t be ignored: Ambient sounds zeroing out, as if someone had turned a dial.
The moment in a nature documentary where schools of fish deserted the area, making way for a marine predator gliding in from the depths.
And the hilt of a snake-entwined knife of flame began to hum at a hunter’s side.
The sands of Nevada should be cool at night, but there was a shimmering in the air up ahead. Something like a heat haze, rippling and distorted. It was stretched, growing taller, outward and moved in silence. In one moment, it could have been mistaken for a thousand shards of glass dripping in prismatic oil. The next, it was as if those same shards had turned as one, solidifying the vision in monochromatic blacks and whites who stepped forth from one dimensional realm to another.
“And, once more, ‘tis a serpent who is the maiden’s undoing…”
Of course now she dropped in for a tête-à-tête.
“Yeah, you think?” Rhiannon continued to pull at the misshapen ring. It came off with a tiny, sucking pop. “I was under the impression it was our X chromosomes. You know us girls.” She inspected the damage to the silvery item in the dark, then chucked it. It landed in a pile of broken fence posts and chicken wire, the engraved crosses on it caked in blood and microscopic pieces of skin.
She was accustomed to this, now. Elfleda’s eerie vacuum of life and light was as much a part of her entourage as the unseen creatures that trumpeted her arrival, not in musical pageantry but in growls from the void. Hers was a presence with duality, forever unnerving to the side of Rhiannon that was quite human and one of humanity’s champions, yet appealing to whatever darkness might be coded into her DNA or within her spiritual inheritance. At least, she assumed the attraction stemmed from being a hunter. If it didn’t, that begged other questions.
Blood ran down Rhiannon’s philtrum and speckled the ground. She checked the amount with her fingers and found them slick with it. “Ugh. Hold on.” She crossed the yard and took a leap back into the open side of the vampires’ house. A moment later, she reappeared with a roll of cheap toilet paper stolen off the back of the tank. Rhiannon peeled the janitorial paper off the outside. “I apologize. You were saying?”
It could be difficult to discern the periodic visitor's emotional state. Given her complexion, Elfleda could, after all, appear very much dead, were it not for the animation of limbs. Strangely, too, an inner spark of life - or perhaps devious intention - in those eyes. There was life to her, in one form or another, it just seemed very reserved. Even her pose was often regal or doll-like.
It almost begged the question of how she might look if truly roused into a behavioural extreme.
And what it might take.
Here, she was regarding Rhiannon's flippant call for time with passive indulgence. No doubt, there were forums in which her presence was cause for celebration or revulsion; something which demanded respect and attention, at the very least. With Rhiannon, the dynamic could sometimes look to have more in common with a teenage girl and visiting older sister.
"Paths have crossed," Elfleda began, lifting an arm to reveal that what was draped around her shoulders was, in fact, very much alive. A huge centipede-like organism, as black as the dress worn upon her frame, held across Elfleda's frame as one would mount a feather boa. Its taloned claws held firm and the squashed head lifted, looking in the hunter's direction. "Fire... And knife," she added in reference to Rhiannon's latest partnership. The phrase encapsulating them both. "Between you, there could be much power. Yet, you do not invite him to share hunts, such as these. Why is that?"
The ball of paper Rhiannon had liberated bounced and blew across the thirsting ground. Its dry crinkle sent a shiver down her spine. Rhiannon stopped staring at Elfleda’s arthropodic shawl. She took a quick breath and inspected the patch of blood on her tissues. It was bright red. “He’s not a vampire hunter,” she said. “I am.” She pinched the bridge of her nose.
It wasn’t worth explaining that Noah watched her send a vampire to its hellish prison in the spring, or that they’d come together after he fried a giant, pillaging earthworm. As for Noah nearly getting killed trying to save someone from a vampire, the Emissary would have to torture that news out of her.
“Anyway, he could burn this place down without stepping foot inside. Then what’s left for me?” Rhiannon countered, looking up. A detached trailer rested nearby, one that had long ago ferried equipment behind a pick-up truck but now was left to fade and rust. She sat on it and unwound a clean piece of toilet paper. Rhiannon’s mouth tasted of metal.
Elfleda could have played the role of a relationship counsellor. Could have, but romantic advice had neither been asked for nor was her motivation for voicing the query. She was more interested in what made others make their choices and, particularly, why they chose to embrace the full extent of a power or use it in moderation.
"Professional pride," she finally surmised; a small ebony smile curving into place. "And your own appetite for the kill... You do well not to repress it. Neither does your prey."
Elfleda's swish of dress, turning smoothly to grace fingertips over the nearest wall, caused the attire to move. Slightly, but it was of its own accord. Where the segmented beast ended and diverged was not clear. Was her entire clothing alive? Perhaps even the same animal? Did it even count as one or did it belong to a wholly separate dimensional ecosystem? Questions which would likely never be answered.
Its owner, however, was reading. Her skin hadn't touched the architecture, but was hovering over it. Elfleda's gaze was focused upon the building and her expression changed to something close to delight, as though privy to unheard humour, then she turned back.
"Some walls do talk. One must learn only how to listen," the ghostly brunette explained and tilted head in an expression of curiosity. "And in my duties, I have heard other whispers, too... Whispers of secrets spilled. Some even in your name, Rhiannon Lee." There came a pause and it wasn't wholly clear whether Elfleda was insinuating full or only partial knowledge of the same. It was easily possible that what might come next would be a request for the hunter to kill in retaliation.
Instead?
"It inspires within me a gaming mood," she announced, levering hand up to finger pendant. "I grant you a question to ask of me."
A gaming mood. Wasn’t it all a game to a creature like Elfleda, one with an unseen chess board on which the hunter was a pawn? Rhiannon’s sardonic smile betrayed that she understood that, but ventured forth anyway. “I’ll play. What’s your weakness?” The spoiled tissues were set aside and, for the moment, the capillaries in her nose agreed to a truce.
“And I don’t mean that you have trouble saying no, or maintaining an appropriate work/life balance. I mean, when it comes to this,” Rhiannon swept her hand to their surroundings, “Great big war. What is your Achilles’ heel?” Perhaps a pragmatic question, from hunter to Emissary of black light. Or a chance to know her better, since Rhiannon’s own private thoughts and desires were often laid bare to Elfeda, with the hunter not having consented to it. If anyone was a gatherer of secret knowledge, it was her.
"Straight for the kill," spoke Rhiannon's guide along life's darker paths. Instead of scowling annoyance, there was the curving of a smile. "But I approve," Elfleda clarified, briefly holding up an outwardly turned palm in acceptance of the query. Maybe the simple act of discovering what Rhiannon would instinctively ask of her, had given Elfleda a new insight she, herself, had sought. Or maybe there was a masochistic streak, finding pleasure in allowing another the knowledge of where best to aim a dagger.
Russian roulette for the damned.
"Remember, in future, that I offer you the gift of truth," Elfleda qualified, conveying the real meaning behind surrendering something of herself so freely. Then, looking up, Elfleda moved like an excited child with a secret; a bashful motion of coyness, still smiling, turning slightly away and with attention returning to her insectoid pet.
"I..."
What had seemed like the beginnings of a confidently posed response, shrank away as Elfleda's smirk withered and darkened. There had been an answer she was ready to supply, but a memory had stirred and it was leading somewhere unpleasant, even for her.
"My betrothal was not a willing one. Not before the Black Light's embrace and, for that, I was abandoned. For it had displaced something within me I could never regain."
Elfleda's gaze was coloured, like the rest of her, with an iris tone of black set within white orbs. That blackness now swept softly to meet the hunter's and she said, "Purity. Through it, heavenly realms may touch this plane, bringing with them their accursed cleansing. This was my gift, you see... One born of light, brought into service of shadow, to speak on its behalf.”
“Oh.” The sound was soft in their muted environment. Features that Rhiannon had noticed about this personage -- the small stature and youthful face, the playfulness of arms and fingers as she danced -- took on new meaning. She had presumed that this presentation of a twisted girl was crafted because it would disturb, in the way that creators of horror leaned heavily on distorted versions of children to scare their audiences. But what if Elfleda had been those things, human or otherwise... Innocent, immaculate, clean of ill will... and was chosen for those qualities because an inversion of it would be perverse?
Rhiannon looked away.
The vulnerability of it bothered her. It was something a woman could understand: to be held in high regard for virtue, pursued because of it, lured away from it, regardless of whether she wanted to be, and afterwards looked upon by some as less. Many acknowledged that this kind of violation had flourished throughout mankind’s time on Earth; a catholic like Rhiannon could see shades of herself in it.
What Rhiannon couldn’t understand was this change of heart: How the conversion could be so complete that Elfleda could shift from an expression of displeasure over what happened to saying that darkness was her gift. A gift that she, apparently, wanted to keep on giving. To blacken everyone. Why? Because she loved servitude? Or because it would help assure that her weakness -- that purity that led to her being chosen in first place -- couldn’t be wielded against her?
A light switched on in the hunter’s head and her face snapped toward where the Emissary stood. “It wouldn’t kill you,” Rhiannon said. The brown irises of her eyes looked nearly as inky as Elfleda’s in their nighttime surroundings. Whatever aches she felt in her body fell away with this revelation. “Purity.”
There it was, again. Something in Elfleda’s eyes. A doll’s eyes, caught between life and death and playing on the tightrope. It was the way in which she looked at her, more like studying than watching. Likely perceiving things the hunter could not, just as when she had yanked her soul from its body and allowed Rhiannon a glimpse of the ethereal world which surrounded her. Something which was always there, just unseen and unheard by most.
“You asked for a weakness. One with meaning. No, it wouldn’t kill me... Nor will I be foolish enough to teach you how to use it.” Lengthy fingers teased at her pet’s taloned head, Elfleda admiring the way her little fanged killer reacted. Her attention, however, had not wavered and she continued to speak for the hunter’s benefit. “I was curious as to your manner of choice. You could have asked me a great deal… Unlocked mysteries, sought opinions, requested meanings. Your instinct compelled you otherwise.”
Whispering to the creature, Elfleda softly blinked back to Rhiannon, head turning with such stability that a glass of water atop it would not have spilled a drop. She said nothing, but there was a rare example of Elfleda’s emotional state on display when she slowly looked Rhiannon up and down. It looked like a child marvelling at a new museum display on a school field trip.
“I search the garden of your world, huntress, not for absolutes, but for potential. Absolutes are an equation already resolved. Potential… A far greater fruit. Your body is but a tool, Executioner. Even now, you can yet bloom brighter than you know.”
With that, she reached out, only to suddenly halt and looked off to one side with a look of offence. “She deserves a taste,” Elfleda commanded at whatever had intervened. Then, more gently, sank her hand into Rhiannon’s aura and touched skin, encircling the hunter’s wrist.
It was like an ice cream headache. A perversely good ice cream headache… Something monstrously overpowering. The feeling gained upon a hunter’s successful choreography of the kill, when a fight had somehow transformed into choreographed ballet. When their meaning had, even for a moment, felt tangible and they had achieved that sense of something channeling through them.
It was the essence of Rhiannon’s very calling.
And lasted only a moment.
“This is what I see for you, my girl… What I feel. If you can take it.”
The air died in Rhiannon’s throat. A rasp and then… Nothing. Yet she did not fight, simply held still for the duration of the experience. Longer. When it ended -- all except for the bizarre tactile contact of Elfleda’s fingers -- the hunter remained with her wrist upright. She gazed at the juncture of her skin and what would be called flesh, for Hell’s representative.
Elfleda, milky-white and black-nailed. Rhiannon, pale and freckled, with a bird etched on her hand.
She knew this feeling, now being magnified. She loved that feeling: The perfect fight, when the stars aligned and each blow landed as it should, and there was just enough pain and challenge to make her work for it. Then the final plunge of a weapon, the grinding downward to make sure, and the silence that came after whatever she killed stopped gurgling or twitching and she was alone. Of course it was alone, where no one could see how much she relished it.
It felt warm to have done well. Satisfying. As though she was an integral part of the universe. Rhiannon had, more than once, stretched out near the body, closed her eyes, and stayed until her pulse slowed and sweat made her shiver. That urge to linger was happening now.
Ultimately, it was a glimpse of her fingers, and the reminder of a missing ring, that snatched Rhiannon back to the present. She looked at Elfleda, more thoughtful than challenging when she said, “If an angel gave you a taste of who you were or what you could be, the way you’re doing for me right now… I wonder if you’d like it the way I do.”
A different type of smile now played around the corrupting agent’s mouth. The nasty type, more suited to someone on the verge of suicide expressing amused fascination with the mechanisms of a gun or knotted rope. A smile which showed only on one’s lips, completely absent around eyes. Elfleda’s responding chuckle was brief, still river-like in its streaming flow, but indicative of consideration.
“You think they haven’t?”
The centipede passenger hissed and raised, cobra-like, staring at Rhiannon. Then at Elfleda, herself. She refused to turn. Without looking, her almost soothing cradle of the beast’s upper section changed to a painful grip, embedding fingernails like a vulture’s talons. The thing reacted in pain, twisting, writhing its bulk upon her and yet… Could have struck. Could have administered a bite, but didn’t. Or couldn’t.
“We all must endure a penance, Rhiannon Lee,” calmly spoke the hellish diplomat, moving towards the house amidst the thing’s screeching. The resemblance to a child holding an animated doll at her side could not be missed. “Some greater than others...”
It was bleeding. Yellow fluids dripping to be soaked into soil and wood. The thrashing monstrosity’s ferocity did not abate, but her grip did not weaken. No, she finally did it the honour of being noticed; lifting it to her line of sight - and painfully wringing its segmented carapace with a satisfied crunching noise, sending more of its foul ooze below. Only when it had served its assigned purpose did Elfleda release it to crawl back into her attire in its broken, weakened state.
“I promised you trophies, did I not?” Not too distant, the sound of something inhuman could be heard calling out. Something which had caught wind of that thick ooze and found it desirable. “And trophies require bait.”
Rhiannon cast a long look into the gloom beyond the property.
The meager light afforded by the first-quarter moon found few objects to bring into relief. Yet there was something out there, hulking. If she squinted, the hunter could just see an outline of gnarled and muscled anatomy. As it prowled the periphery, the first creature to breach the silence since Elfleda’s arrival, Rhiannon caught a scent, too. This one was ripe and putrid, overpowering her bloody nose and the musk of vampiric nest saturating her clothing.
Her legs moved first, finding the ground. Her heartbeat quickened. Rhiannon intersected the space between the monster and the Emissary, and though her back was turned to Elfleda, the question she asked was undoubtedly meant for her.
“Do you want this one?” she asked. That gleaming, black weapon could take care of a foe and leave no one the wiser, but there was something about getting elbow-deep in the muck. “Or should I use my hands?”
There was no way to know whether this was a matter of hierarchy. Whether Rhiannon was being used to eliminate competitors or pawns thereof and use it to venture higher up the ladder - or down, as the case might be. But so much of Elfleda had been about the order of things, right down to whatever her relationship might be with the creature of before and why it had not retaliated. The phrasing she had chosen when inflicting pain upon it.
Perhaps Rhiannon wasn’t so much functioning as her champion, as Elfleda was championing her. Sharpening the hunter like a favourite blade.
Or maybe the thing had forgotten to pay its taxes.
“Surprise me,” the figure in black encouraged, watching on like a pleased empress of Rome presiding over her personal gladiatorial arena. “It’s something you’re developing a talent for.”