‘Will you, won’t you rise to fulfil the Fall?’ the Needleman asked, stalking towards her. This was the customary question it offered the chosen ones, though whatever they wailed or whimpered in response, whether threats, bribes or pleas for mercy, the answer was always the same.
‘Oh yes, you will!’ the herald confirmed, whirling its claws in a slashing salute. Then its step faltered as it noticed something else about its prey.
Her eyes were black.
The Dark Woman regarded the creature before her with detached contempt. It was an inane, unfinished wretch, drenched in blood and banality. She recognised the supernal entity its makeshift claws and mask aspired to, but the mimicry fell far short of the graffiti that had enthralled her earlier that night, let alone the reality. The youth who’d stalked her skulked behind the sham, clinging to his delusions like a drowning man.
‘You are nothing,’ she judged. Picturing his mask’s cord, she tore it free with a twist of her will. ‘Let me make something of you.’
The boy stared at her, terror and envy warring for supremacy on his face. Stripped of his façade he was pitiful – a frail and quailing thug who’d imagined himself so much more. Only the violence in him survived his exposure, too ingrained to scour away.
‘Come then,’ the Dark Woman goaded, knowing he couldn’t resist the challenge. ‘Kill me if you can.’
With a snarl the youth lurched towards her, his claws slashing in dual swipes. To his foe’s heightened senses the attack appeared sluggish, as though he were wading through water, while her domain was air. She darted inside the languid arcs and rammed her shok-jak’s blunt prong between his jaws, shattering his teeth and tearing through the tongue behind. The charge activated when the tip hit the back of his throat, spewing electric current through his skull. His eyes widened as they broiled, then burst wetly. Sparks played about the charred sockets, teasing out black smoke. More leaked from his jaws, which had melted around the prong jutting from them.
‘You were a lie,’ his executioner declared, releasing her weapon. She stepped away as the dead man’s claws completed their passage, gnashing together like teeth. The impact unbalanced the corpse and it toppled over, flat on its back.
‘For the Fall,’ the Dark Woman proclaimed, granting the fool a purpose in death. Her eyes met the vacant gaze of the mask beside him.
Will you, won’t you? it asked.
Deciding she would, the night’s new herald picked it up. It was a crude thing, yet they shared the same creed. They had both sacrificed to hasten the coming darkness. In time she would far outstrip the grubby offerings of its creator, but the mask itself was potent.
This isn’t me, a plaintive voice beseeched her, but it was buried too deep to matter any more, if it ever had. Ignoring the ghost, she glanced at the liquid-filled monolith. The urge to worship at its fount and drink again was strong, but she understood she’d had her fill. Whatever remained was for others to savour. She would approve it as an additive, of course. That would be her final act in this squalid temple-factory, for she wouldn’t be returning. Soon the nectar would find its way to Carceri’s forsaken, too diluted to awaken their flesh as it had awakened hers, but sufficient to open their eyes. Their enlightenment would be one of many unravelling threads in this world’s greater dissolution.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered to the monolith. ‘For the choice.’
Leaving the warehouse, she stopped beside the dead watchman. When the bodies were found questions would be asked, but quickly quashed in the name of productivity. The authorities would never hear of the murders. And in due course the cadavers would return here in another form.
‘I’m sorry,’ the Dark Woman said to the old man. It was her second apology of the night and the last she would ever offer.
Skreech lay in a darkness more complete than anything he’d ever desired, dead yet horribly present, severed from sensation, yet all too aware of the voracious, watchful giant looming over him. Pleading without words, he begged for forgiveness – for another chance to serve – but if his dark god heard him it paid no heed.
The Dark Woman took the stairwell back to her old apartment, striding up the mountain of steps as confidently as her former self would have crossed a room. Occasionally she passed shabby, broken-faced figures, but they slunk away from her, sensing she wouldn’t be easy pickings, which was the only kind they cared for. Reaching her floor, she stopped to peruse the hallowed graffiti that had signposted her path. The mandala was still there, testifying to the sanctity of this place, but the figure was gone, its message served and its territory relinquished to a new custodian.
‘We are legion,’ the Dark Woman acknowledged. Later she would ascend further and claim the tower’s derelict heights as her eyrie, along with the abandoned souls who congregated there, taking some as worshippers, others as sacrifices, for they were ripe for either role. But first she must accept the sacrament that would seal her allegiance to the night.
The supplicant donned her predecessor’s mask then walked the corridor she had always shunned, shivering as its shadows caressed her. Soft but insistent, they teased her flesh and bones into finer, sharper forms with every step she took, eliciting pleasure and pain in equal measure.
Will we, won’t we… the mask murmured, sharing its wearer’s epiphany.
The Dark Woman gasped as her fingers lengthened then split, budding crooked blades that chittered when she flexed them. Her elbows splintered in sudden sympathy, then multiplied and knitted into new configurations that would defy mortal eyes. A few steps later her knees followed, twisting into manifold opposing arcs, yet she kept her balance, instinctively adapting to the changes. When her torso shattered she screamed from the soul, then moaned as the
