Vermilion Widow, Issue #003

Issue #003 – – – – – controlled by Bill Treadwell – – – – – Credits 16

Cassandra arrived back at her apartment a little after ten.  Her body felt drained, all the strength and vitality leached out of her.  She slipped into her tiny kitchen and dropped the bucket of fried chicken on the table – a treat she’d picked up on the way back from work.

She took some time to search her small home.  For what?  She didn’t know.  But she searched nonetheless, eyes peeled for anything strange or unusual or suspicious.  Finding nothing untoward she flicked the radio on.  Harry Neptune, the shock-jock who commanded the evening talkie slot on a local station she enjoyed crackled from the speakers.  He was in heavy debate with a caller from Downtown somewhere about some kind of urban “vampire” that the nutjob said was stalking the neighbourhood.  Cassandra smiled ruefully.  They were crazy down there.

The answering machines ready light shone its monotonous green.  No messages.  Of course there were no messages.  Who was going to call?  Some concerned friend?  Cassandra’s friends were all with the force and a fair few of them had just been killed.  Odd that she didn’t feel the appropriate remorse.  Some kind of denial?  She should probably think about getting some counselling.   But that was for tomorrow.  Tonight, she was going to unwind and try to piece together what the hell had happened today.

Picking listlessly at her food, Cassandra wondered if she should set a trap of some kind.  After all you never knew when a supervillain was going to creep into your room in the night, right?  Almost immediately she realised how crazy this sounded.  Supervillain?  Why would a supervillain come to her home?  She was just a cop.  Nobody special, particularly.  Cassandra Stormsov, one of the Bullies who policed the city.  Though, she admitted, policing was probably a poor description of the job that was done given how illiberally their services were available.

At some point she drifted off to sleep in her easy chair, its comfortable old shape so perfectly fitting her form after years of use both familiar and strangely unfamiliar.   She lost herself in vague dreams of some other place and some other people.

Blink.

Cassandra’s eyes snapped open.  The lounge was almost completely dark, lit only by a shaft of moonlight that found its way down the middle of her imperfectly-drawn curtains.  But she was immediately wide awake.  Her mind was saying: “Listen.  Be aware.  Danger.”  It was so real, so potent, that she could not ignore it.  It felt like some sixth sense had switched on in her head.  Sixth sense.  Cassandra felt like she should know what this meant, but the memory remained ethereal.

She stood up and moved across her lounge, comfortable in the darkness, her steps confident.  She pulled open the curtains and let the silvery moonlight stream in.  The room was empty.  No danger lurked here.  But still Cassandra’s mind said otherwise and she chose to pay attention to it.  She was not about to start second-guessing herself at every turn.  That would be both pointless and tiresome.

“Whoever you are,” she said aloud, “You might as well reveal yourself. I know you’re there.”  As she spoke she carefully withdrew her pistol from its hiding place taped beneath the window sill – one of several she had secreted around her home.  She clicked the safety off and readied the weapon.  “This is your only chance to get out of this without a lot of bullet holes.”

In one corner of the room, by the television she rented but so rarely switched on, the darkness shifted slightly.   There.  Cassandra took a firm stance and pointed the pistol.  “Come on,” she coaxed.  “Show yourself.  Last chance.”  A form materialised in the gloom.  It was as if pieces of the darkness came together, like a spectral jigsaw assembling itself into the shape of a woman.  Then Cassandra could see her – tall, dressed entirely in black save for the tiny logo on her right breast, a half-mask covering her face above the mouth.  “There’s no need to shoot me,” the woman said.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Cassandra told her.  “Why are you hiding in my apartment?”
“I don’t mean you any harm.  I’ve been watching you.”
“Watching me?  Why?  For how long?” Cassandra asked her.
“I was with the gang in the alley.  I wasn’t in costume then and I was one of the ones who got away.  I didn’t go far.  I saw what you did.  Your actions … they were … odd.”
Cassandra knew this was true but wasn’t about to share her confusing situation with this stranger.  “So?” She demanded.
“I know you have powers.  But the Bullies don’t seem to have identified you and you aren’t licensed.  How is that?”
“I don’t have powers,” Cassandra laughed.  But as she did so, something in her mind shifted.  Powers?  Did she have powers?
“You do.  I sensed them when I saw you in the alley, but they were faint.  Then when you left the police station they were stronger.  I waited until you fell asleep and entered your apartment, I was going to look through your things and try to work out who, or what, you were.  But then I sensed your powers blossom.  You woke up.  You seemed to sense me in a similar way to my own ability to sense you.  It’s fascinating.”

“Look,” Cassandra said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.  You’ve trespassed into my home and you are lurking in the darkness behind my TV.  You say you mean no harm but I’ve yet to meet somebody friendly who creeps around like that.  So, give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot you in the leg and then drag you to the station for processing.”
“If you go back to the police station now,” the masked woman said.  “They will know you for what you are.  Your powers are too great to avoid detection.”
“I don’t believe you,” Cassandra said flatly  But it was a lie.  She did believe her.  Cassandra had no idea how, or why, but it felt right.

Her eyes shifted to the little cabinet in the alcove.  She walked over there, drawn by the ringing in her mind, by that annoying noisy sense that seemed to have switched on in her brain and would not shut up.  The masked woman just watched as Cassandra pulled the cabinet open.  She hadn’t opened it in years.  Had she ever opened it?  She wasn’t sure.  Inside there was a costume, hanging on a hook.  A Vermilion catsuit.  A domino mask.  A black leather jacket with a spider symbol.  “What the hell?” she gaped, amazed.
“Is that yours?” the masked woman strode over and stood beside her.  “Have a little secret, do we?”
“No, I don’t!” Cassandra insisted.  She wasn’t afraid of the woman, her senses were not warning her of danger any longer.  She could not take her eyes off the costume because now, as she saw it, a set of memories began to trickle back.  Memories of another life, another place, another world.
“This life isn’t my life,” she realised.  “Something has happened.  Something has screwed with my mind.  I don’t belong here.”
“You aren’t the first person I’ve heard say that,” the masked woman said.  “My name is Hourglass.  Let me take you to Viktor’s?  There are people there who can help you understand what is happening.”