Lady in Red: Chapter 3

Lady in Red: Chapter 3

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Commissioned by Sivantic

Wordcount: 2500

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I rifled through the lady’s pockets to look for a phone only to find all sorts of odd doodads and doohickeys.

Take the knife and the catalyst. The lady in my vision spoke, all dazzling and imperious and like, but all that was useless with me not knowing a darn thing. The first doodad and the second doohickey, bumpkin.

“Born and raised in the country, lady. I know what I know.” I grabbed what she told me to and got to the door. It was locked from the outside and the lady I’d knocked the sense out of hadn’t had a key. In fact, the door’s lock didn’t even have keyhole. “Well, damn.”

The second object. Press it against the lock.

What the lady-in-red called the catalyst was a nifty little thing straight outta some giftshop for tourist. A glass marble surrounded by flames swirling about in gold, it felt warm to the touch and glowed all-pretty like. It would’ve been the strangest thing in my life, if not for all the other weird things that happened to me since I ventured into the forest.

So, I just pressed it against the odd lock, and after that the door opened just fine.

Now, as useful as it would be, it’ll be a way for them to track you. Be rid of it by crushing it with the knife’s side.

“What if there’re other doors that need opening, lady? My ma’s room, maybe?” I looked about and found myself in a small hallway. There were just three sets of doors, including the one I’d just left. It wouldn’t be too hard to leave. “I ain’t leavin’ this place without my ma.”

You’re note getting out of here alive with your mother. I tried to move towards the closest door, but my hands and feed didn’t warrant my will worth listening to. My body was frozen, while the lady in red circled around me with a fierce glare that brokered no arguments. In fact, you’re better off leaving her with them, since they’ll keep her alive to try and keep you under control, and they’re too weak to try and threaten to kill humans who know nothing.

My mouth wouldn’t work properly, but the more is trained, the more the ghostly lady seemed to sweat and strain… but as she did my stomach and whole body began to ache as well. I’d gotten torn up just a few hours ago and woken in the snow… I was plenty sure that me and my ghostly guest were connected somehow and sharing lives.

And, that’s why you mustn’t resist. You’re inexperienced and you know nothing. Let me guide you, at least until we’re both well enough to not die merely arguing! The scarlet woman growled at me. It was a bestial, low growl with a full with snarling fangs. A bit of what she was hiding came out and it felt more calming to look at than whatever she was trying to be. Your perceptiveness and beliefs mean nothing, if you perish.

“Nothing about me would mean jackshit, if I leave my ma with strangers, either. So let me do what I gotta do, instead of trying to interfere.” I kept pushing, even through the sudden pain I felt around my stomach, and the lady snarled at me. But the resistance I felt disappeared and I finally found myself able to walk. “Besides, she’s locked in that room, so we got a little time.”

You say “we,” yet you’re only doing as you wish.

“Well, lady, it’s my body and it sure as hell ain’t yours.” I took myself to the other two doors even with the pain spreading across my stomach. It started to fade, but I kept myself focused. Getting Ma was the only thing that I had in mind. “Now, it should work the same, right?”

It did, but for both doors, I found nothing but empty rooms and at the end of the hall was a kitchenette and living room that led straight outside.

I very nearly went back into the room with the woman who blew up my house, but my hanger-on spoke up.

You’ll die. She saw and felt you use my power. Going back in there means you’ll die, or be imprisoned. It’s time to leave. Nothing strange happened with those words. No sudden lack of movement. It was just a statement. And, that made me pause and grit my teeth, because it felt like nothing but the truth. Crush the catalyst with the side of the knife. Search for whatever you can and take it from the front room. I have my own means of finding your mother, so leave this place before our lives are ended.

There weren’t words for what I felt, but I forced myself to move forward.

It wasn’t much.

I wanted to do more for Ma, but she wasn’t here and I didn’t have anything else that I could do, so I did what I could after smashing whatever the hell I had in my hands.

I found what I could use in the near-empty room at the end of the hall, took whatever looked vaguely important, and made my way out into the cool, winter night.

Whatever anger and frustration I had must’ve been clear to my passenger, since she didn’t say a word while I worked. If I had anything to say about my new, strange company, it was the fact that she was courteous when she needed to be, even if she was a tad caustic.

After all that, she didn’t say a word about being right, about me wasting time, and still promised to help me find Ma.

That was more than I had when I woke up and after I found all those empty rooms.

…

We’ve driven far enough. It’s time to check the trunk.

I hadn’t driven much and it was a hell of a time to drive in the dead of night on slippery roads in a beat-up, old jalopy without any heating, but I made it work.

“Tell me what we’ll be looking for before I stop. There’s no place decent to stop anyway.” I managed to grunt a few words to the apparition seated on the passenger’s seat. The lady in red was still in red, but she’d decided to stop trying to be sultry and tempestuous. She wore a fine red suit with a white dress shirt, all professional-like, as she gave me what companionship a ghost in my head could. “Is it gonna be more doohickeys and doodads?”

Magical artifacts and tools, yes. That small home was a safehouse lodged within a hotel by the magicians. That little upstart probably has all her tools in the back. We’ll take what we can and break the rest, before changing to another car, just in case. She was talking a lot of sense, so I listened to her. She eyed me when I thought that, and then decided to glare at me. The fact that I must reason with you like an equal is something that you should cherish. I am a beast beyond your imagination. Normally, your impertinence would have you killed.

“Yeah, I reckoned that was the case, but we still gotta work together and stay alive. I’m sure that you’ve got a lot, but right now you’ve only got me.” It felt strange to say that to a ghost, but pieced a few things together. “Since you’re going to help me save my Ma, then I’ll do what I can to help ya out.”

You help me by staying alive. I help you by taking in an organization out to kill us both with barely any aid that won’t kill you on sight. She pinched the bridge of her nose, before gritting her fangs. Fine. Fine. This is the worst, but I’ve gotten through plenty of challenges. This’ll be another.

Pictures appeared in my vision as I turned into a rest stop and let the car idle in a parking lot, while heading over to the nearest vending machine for food. My kidnapper’s wallet was flush with cash instead of credit cards. Most of the bills were big, but there were plenty to get loads of jerky and plenty of water to choke it down with.

You’re searching for more catalysts and a staff. We won’t be able to use those, so destroying them with the knife will be the first course of affairs. What I needed to destroy flashed in my vision and I committed them to memory. The little gathering of objects faded away and was replaced by another. You’ll be searching for these, along with whatever mundane tools that you can get your hands on.

Most of what I could take were vials of sorts with glowing insides. Their colors were mostly red and green, while they gave off a pale shine.

You’ll be avoiding all the other colors. You’ll just die by taking them with your body, since you’re too mundane for now. Drain and throw them aside. Any practitioner worth their salt will track them.

I didn’t know better, so I just did what I was told, and opened the trunk. The insides were mostly what the lady told me about, but there was one thing that got me thinking.

A rifle and magical ammunition. Our friend seems to have been quite affluent. It looked just like any other hunting rifle in town. Easy to use with practice and carried around unloaded by anyone with their head on straight. Do you know how to use that weapon? It would be an asset, as long as the bullets last.

“No, ma’am. I don’t and I reckon getting bullets to practice with won’t be easy, so we’re better off not messing with such thing.” I’d watched plenty of movies and heard a lot about guns. They’re strong, lethal stuff in the right hands. But my hands weren’t right at all for them. I knew enough about guns from the older folk that I knew that I shouldn’t give it a try without a few lessons under my belt. “Probably best we make sure we don’t give it back.”

The weapon is mundane, but the bullets are not. If I were at my prime, I’d simply tell you to destroy the ammunition and scatter them about, but you are human and regular bullet would kill you just fine… so we should make use of what we have. My passenger appeared beside me as a disembodied, gloved hand and pointed at what I needed to take and what I needed to leave in. I did as it said, until what I couldn’t use was left in the trunk. Spill the munitions on the surface of the trunk, then spill the potions we can’t use on them. The magics will muddle and melt everything. Then, put the gun in, so that it’ll be ruined as well.

“Won’t the trunk get ruined? Driving with a ruined trunk’ll get us noticed.” I started moving, even as I asked, because I was sure that she already knew the answer to the question and just wasn’t privy on explaining.

The trunk is enchanted. It’s a magical strongbox that kept my senses out. It’s protected from within and without against most threats, so a little bubbling and boiling of reagents won’t ruin the car. The explanation was curt and carried that sort of superiority all smart folk had. It rankled, but I listened and did what I needed to do to get rid of the more dangerous things I didn’t want my kidnapper to get her hands on. Soon enough, in the back of a trunk, a rifle was sitting in a bubbling, oozing, and thick mass that was eating away it. Good. Now, you’ll be drinking half of a red vial and half of green vial. They’ll be fixing you up, so that I don’t have to waste so much power just keeping you patched together.

“Got it.”

They’ll taste vile, but as you humans say: bitter medicines tend to be the most effective.

I’d never heard that saying, and I doubted it was true, but I took the vials and drank them. The taste was putrid and rotten for both, but my passenger said nothing even as she recoiled with the taste too, and I forced half of both vials down, before clearing my mouth with water. My stomach did turnovers when they entered, but soon enough a feeling of wellness and health started flowing through my body.

I felt a lot better, even though I hadn’t been in that bad of a state before.

Amazing.

Feh. It’s a poor imitation of a true elixir, but it’ll do. Now… it’s time we get moving again. Fill yourself up with that meat, then we move to find someone useful… who won’t be strong enough to just kill the both of us.

I wasn’t all too keen on the description, but I couldn’t deny that help sounded useful.

But now that we were relatively safe and going towards someplace else…

Ah, finally. The question that was avoided for the sake of survival. A wise choice then, but not so much now. A hum left the lady in red’s lips. Her clothes shifted from a suit the red number that I’d first seen her in, but there were symbols on it that I didn’t recognize, as well as a lot of gold and jewelry. My true name would shatter your mind and render you inept, so I shall allow you to call me Daiyu. All you need to know is that man you encountered, who sealed me within you, could not defeat me and sought a place of power to destroy us both. Now, you flee from his allies, who will seek to end both our lives.

She didn’t say anything about who was right and who was wrong in the fight. It was all just about killing and being killed. I wasn’t inclined towards philosophy, but I knew enough to know things weren’t that simple.

That is true, yet so is what I said. I was killed by them for my actions. I killed them for their actions. They died and now I will die by their allies, along with you, if nothing is done. Daiyu called upon a white coat to settle on her shoulders and a long pipe fell unto her hands. Even though she wasn’t real, I could smell perfume and the scent of the tobacco that she smoked in the car, and even so the slight smoke that wafted from her elegant, long pipe. By running, but doing as I ask, you are saving my life. You mortals and humans are fools, but I acknowledge those who aid and support me. Save my life by saving your own and separating us, then I shall reward you with not just ignorance and your mother, but wealth to live comfortably for the rest of your years.

The deal would’ve been too sweet to bear by itself, but I saw what I was supposed to get myself into. Ladies that could blow up entire houses without getting police involved. Spirits in my head that could manhandle my body. Guns with magical ammunition. Flat out magical stones and doors.

I had half a mind to ask for more, but I didn’t want anything more than what she offered.

“Fine, you got it. Keep your end of the bargain and I’ll keep mine.”

Good.

I was involved now, but I was going to find a way out and get my Ma while I did.

That was all I wanted to do with the world I was in now.