NOIR-vember_ FALLEN WORLD, BROKEN SOULS

 

FALLEN WORLD, BROKEN SOULS

“If the living are haunted by the dead, then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes.”

 – Helen Mayfair

 

I frowned. “I am unfamiliar with this street, Sister Ameal.”

She grimaced, “That is because this street can be found only at night. It is Rue la Mort … where Meilori’s is located.”

“Is that where we are going?”

Mrs. Adams shook her head. “No, McCord has closed his jazz club for the duration of this world conflict.”

I frowned again. “The movie and radio mogul?”

She huffed, “That One is many things, chief of which is hated by me.”

Sister Ameal smiled thin as a paper cut. “Then, he must be doing something right.”

“Not in my ledger.”

Sister Ameal raised an eyebrow. “Your accounts are notoriously … in the red.”

Mrs. Adams arched her back. “How low brow of you.”

The nun retorted, “Speaks a low brow herself.”

“What nonsense are you spewing?”

“One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, 

ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one.”

“Coming from a former paid assassin that is rich.”

“True, I killed for a price, but I never deluded myself or others into thinking I was doing it for the ‘greater good’ … which is merely a synonym for self-interest.”

I shushed both of them. “Hush. You are ruining a perfectly good girls’ night out.”

Mrs. Adams curled her perfect lips.

 “When I could rightly have been called a ‘girl,’ the term had not yet been coined.”

Sister Ameal bristled. 

“We are not out for an evening’s entertainment, Seraph. We are in search of an abomination to put it down.”

Madame President growled, “Over my undead body.”

“That could happily be arranged.”

In an attempt to forestall violence, I asked, “So where are you taking us, Sister?”

“Club Oblivion.”

Adams shook her head. “I have never heard of it.”

“It just opened up. My Nightcrawlers recently told me of it.”

“Nightcrawlers?” Adams made a face.

“Sherlock Holmes had his Baker Street Irregulars. I have my French Quarter Nightcrawlers.”

I sighed, my hopes of a colorful outing dashed. 

“Will the customers of this club tell us the whereabouts of this missing child-revenant, do you think?”

Sister Ameal snorted, 

“In Hell, you would be foolish to count on people displaying high standards of honesty. The same goes for those destined for that locale.”

It was my turn to make a face.

“If there are damned souls in Hell, it is because men blind themselves. 

Perhaps, there are a few souls in this club who have, as yet, not mutilated their better selves.”

“Then, they would not be in such a place as to where we are headed, Seraph."

And with those words we were standing in front of the lace-iron gates of the very place. 

Gleaming gold letters were etched over the fanged gate:

“Damned be the dark ends of the earth where old horrors live again.”

"Charming," said Mrs. Adams in a droll, making of the word three syllables.

I looked at the stone steps leading down and past the open gate. I grimaced.

‘Here the earth devours itself,’ I told myself. 

I didn't imagine a fissure at the bottom of the steps, I imagined a mouth. I deluded myself.

There were many mouths.

I started to go down the stairs when, knowing better than to physically touch one such as I, Sister Ameal held up a single palm.

“Hold.”

I stopped and turned to her as she whispered, “You do not think of yourself as arrogant and naïve, but you are.”

“Do tell me.”

As Mrs. Adams watched bemused, the nun did just that.

 “Your nature made you faster, stronger, smarter than any assailant enemies of your step-father set against you.”

I nodded. “I have taken no pleasure in taking those lives.”

Sister Ameal shook her head. 

“Such will not be the case with those you face down there. They take much pleasure in the agonies they inflict upon their victims.”

She breathed in deep, though I knew that, like the revenant beside me, she did not need to breathe to live … for she only appeared human.

“They have had centuries to perfect forms of martial arts I have, as yet, even had an opportunity to instruct you.”

She glared at the revenant queen. 

“This one had a twofold plan in approaching you tonight: one you know – to retrieve her pet. The other was to lure you here to your death, removing a threat to herself.”

I nodded. “I deduced as much.”

Adams frowned, “Then, why did you come?”

I sighed, “All around me see what they expect to see, while I see ... so many things.”

I reached out to touch her arm but pulled back as she flinched. “I see your soul.”

“Wh-What?”

“It still exists deep within you, though calling it ‘alive’ would not be quite true. I see it quivering, dew drops of blood glistening along the many mortal wounds you have inflicted upon it.”

I cocked my head towards Sister Ameal. 

“I will not reveal the existential loneliness of a cosmic creature that I view within you to our common enemy here.”

Her thin lips curled. “I believe you just have.”

I shook my head.

 “She knows the tip of the iceberg but not the majestic immensity that lies beneath.”

I drew myself up slowly. 

“As for myself, I am not the naïve doe you imagine me to be. I am … Other.”

I fought a shiver. 

“None like me no matter what that Scaramouche Darael believes. 

No other of my kind was created as a babe to grow as mortals grow in stature and awareness … away from the glories of the Gateless Realm.”

I lost to the shiver. 

“Even now, I grow. I now hear the death-bleats from the tortured soul waiting at the foot of these steps. It protests what its diseased host intends upon inflicting on me.”

I prepared myself to race down these cracked steps when I remembered the kind voice of Richard, who unknowingly spoke healing balm to my darkness. 

He had thought me but merely depressed, not contemplating suicide those day past.

“There are flecks of gold in the gravel of each moment, Miss Mayfair, if you but look close enough. 

Take that moment, be in that moment, live in that moment … not beyond that moment. It won’t be much, mind you. 

But it may prove enough to go onto the next one with a lighter step.”

With a restored sense of peace, I started down the steps. Mrs. Adams placed a restraining hand on my arm.

“Do not. That travesty I would ensnare again is not worth it. I … am not worth it.”

I smiled sadly. “But you are … now. See? You did not burst into flames at my touch.”

She hushed in a breath. “How?”

“You unselfishly thought of another over your own well-being.”

I withdrew a glistening rose from beneath my cloak. “From the lushness of Eden. Take it. You will not suffer from its touch.”

I watched her gingerly take it, not caring if I lied.

“Keep it high upon a wall in your bedchambers, Mrs. Adams. Mayhap its fragrance will remind you that your soul still lives … 

still fights to remain true to the love you once shared with your husband.”

Abigail Adams hunched over and walked slowly into the utter darkness.

I heard her whisper. “Gently are you revenged against me, Seraph.”

Sister Ameal frowned as I turned to go. “We are not going into Club Oblivion?”

“No need. I see that in those environs, the poor thing begins to age. Even now, she appears a teenager. Oh, I misspoke: she has crumbled into dust.”

I smiled of salt. “Sometimes, it is a fearsome thing to gain that for which we wish.”

I saw a flash of what lay in store for Richard … and myself and knew what I said to be true.

“Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams and our desires.”

 NEXT: 

DEATH IN THE HIDDEN VALLEY OF PARIS

A tale of the mysterious McCord mentioned in this tale.