A powerfully built woman strode into the warehouse, preceded by a peculiar little man of verminous appearance. Once she was inside, the woman instinctively knew something was peculiar. Quicker than might have been expected, she grabbed the man in front of her, whipped a dagger from its sheath at her flank, and held it to his neck.
“What passes Jerome? This is clearly not the high-end meeting I was promised. Think you to lead me into an ambush?” She gripped the dagger with a fury so intense that it drew blood from the man’s neck unintentionally. Alyssa was pleased to see the whites of the man’s eyes. She might not trust him, but she could deal on even terms with his terror.
“Nay Lady Alyssa,” he replied, in that obsequious tone found so irritating by the self-reliant; Alyssa ground her teeth. The man continued, “My mistress is a secretive woman, and the matter she would treat with you over is most precious to her heart.”
Alyssa released the man, “Then call your mistress, I will not wait here for you to set off an ambush.” She spoke as though such a thing instilled no fear in her. She did, however, keep her blade in hand.
Jerome scuttled into the centre of the warehouse, and for a moment Alyssa was concerned that he might be searching for hidden allies. But no, he stopped, and knelt in a large, clear section of the warehouse.
“Mistress I call to you. I have found the one you seek. She is strong and powerful, possessing no lack that you might fear. She is well-connected amongst the city and widely respected. Her abilities are more than we could have hoped and she possesses potential that even she has not realised. This one even holds the most delicious of weaknesses. She is perfect. Mistress, I call to you, that this lowly servant might fulfil his pledge.”
Alyssa realised something was wrong, deathly wrong. He spoke as if this woman he had brought were not the ally Jerome had said she would be, but rather some kind of morsel, or a slave at market. She backed toward the door of the warehouse, seeing the knuckles clutching her dagger go white with the force of her grip. “What is this Jerome? This is not what I was promised!”
The man looked up at her, false sorrow lighting his eyes, “Nay lady Alyssa, it is not what you were promised.” A sneer fought past the doleful expression, “but there are layers of loyalty here, and yours is preceded by two others.” He flicked two fingers in a dismissive gesture and turned away from her.
Alyssa broke and ran, tugging at the door of the warehouse, a door that should not, could not, have been locked. She had been standing beside it since she had entered this warehouse, and never had Alyssa heard the latch click. Unbelievably, the door was completely immovable. She turned from the door, thinking to size up her chances against whatever henchmen Jerome and his mistress might call upon.
There was nothing; the pathetic little man sat hunched on the cold floor of the warehouse. Alone except for the crates surrounding him and the shadows enveloping him.
"Sssibilusss?"
The voice chilled Alyssa’s blood in her veins. Though it came from the direction of Jerome’s hunched form, it seemed far stronger than any sound the little man could make. Around him, the shadows seemed to coalesce with the vivacity of the voice’s tone. The torches bracketed to the walls flickered and waned in response to a brush of wind, causing the shadows to leap all the more.
Alyssa ran, seeking to put as much distance between herself and Jerome’s shadows.
"Sssibilusss, you have found her?"
“Yes mistress, I have. Come that we might end this debt between us.” His grubby little cloak seemed to ripple,as though caught by the same wind that smothered the flames. His features elongated and his clothes took on a sheen and a strength.
"Yesss"The word carried far more than an echo of Jerome’s sentiment.
Alyssa ran with a blind terror through the labyrrinthine collection of cargo crates. Around and above her, shadows and flame danced in synchronicity, flowing back and forth. The wooden crates around her undulated and her very perceptions of the world began to seem untrustworthy; the dark world swirled and creaked, moaned and rippled.
A skeletal face peered out from a broken crate, grinning at her with a macabre smile. She stopped her flight, too horrified now to even follow such a basic instinct, and stared as it danced into view, sitting atop an impossible body of mere bones. Behind it loomed brothers in kind, skeletal figures held together by nothing more than a dark will. Above Alyssa the shadows carressed and harrassed the light, driving it ever down and out of her sight.
The bodies shambled toward her and Alyssa heard the sounds that their emergence was being echoed across the giant warehouse. Three of the things walked to an as-yet-untouched crate and began to dig into it with their bony fingers, wearing at it with dead fingers.
"Sssstop", so much less a whisper than a command.
Against a will and the instinctive self-preservation so often confused with true cowardice she stayed put and turned toward the voice. The figure she met was as herself but garbed in shadow itself, bearing no hue but darkest black. Eyes empty of emotion bored into her own, hypnotising, consuming. Her shadow encrouched upon her, extending a hand in a simulacrum of greeting.
Behind it, almost out of sight stood a tall figure clothed in a vibrant flanged plate, and wearing a red-rimmed cloak which stood out markedly against the dark room.
The shadows tattered the flames as a candle would a moth, consuming it entirely.
A powerfully built woman stood upon the warehouse roof, watching her city burn. Through its streets roamed the dead, bidding the living to join them. They recruited with blades, invited with stinging arrows. Already their ranks were swollen thick. The city burned and Alyssa smiled through cherubric lips. But the smile never reached those cold, dead eyes.
