Study In Sepia: A Poignant Reminder

"How are you with cadavers?"

I had watched the young woman as she had undressed, bathed and dressed again, making note, all the while, of the way she had managed to keep her back modestly towards me when she could. It was a heady and almost seductive sort of thought, to say the least, to think that she had maintained such a sense of modestly about herself despite how open her eyes were to the ugly darkness of the world.

"Pardon?" she asked, her voice ringing with the very slightest hint of an accent.

I hated it. But, even more than her atrocious accent, I hated having to repeat myself. "Cadavers. How are you with them?"

She didn't look up as she fastened the buckles on her shoes. "In what context?"

I frowned at her. A first. "In the context, first, of your becoming one, followed by the context of your handling one."

Finally she looked up at me. She appeared suddenly ashen. "I--don't know," she admitted. "To the first, at least--I don't know."

My brow piqued. "And to the latter?"

Breathing in deep, she sat up straight and rigid. "I can hold my own well enough." She began to offer a half smile, then thought better of the choice, instead, she turned her attention to her purse where she dug out the once-worn lipstick.

Irritated, I smacked the small tube from her hand. My eyes were large and wild as I looked down upon her like a petulant child. "Don't!" I did not yell at her, in fact, the tone of my voice barely rose an octave as I'd said the scolding word. It hadn't been much, but it had been enough. She didn't ask questions, nor did she argue or reach for anything else. Instead, she simply waited for me to speak again. "That bawd color might have been what brought Sir to you initially, but that isn't why he brought you to his home. Not now. Not ever."

She asked simply, "Then what is my purpose? What is my raison d'être?"

Quietly I ground my teeth. Never in my life--nor my afterlife--had I had to struggle with myself as I did now to keep my composure. That--accent! I exhaled slowly, and I composed myself anew before I dared to speak again. "Honestly, I don't know. And, honestly, I couldn't care less. It's as I said before, that is completely and most absolutely up to Sir."

"Then who...?"

"Who am I?"

She nodded. "And what? What purpose do you serve?"

Had my heart still beat beneath my breast, it would have stopped then and there. For the first time in my existence I was dumbstruck--and I despised it. And I despised her for bringing it out in me. My instincts leapt at the opportunity and bid my muscles to flex to reach towards her, to seize her and to take her and to tear her asunder and to rend her limb from limb... All of this I saw so clearly in my mind; in an instant, as if I'd acted out the dreadful deed without a moment's hesitation.

But I had hesitated. More than that, I'd outright stopped myself. I had had no other choice, after all. For Sir would not have approved.

How fortunate for us both there came a sudden, albeit quiet, knock at the door.

"Yes, come in." I took a step back from the girl, forcing distance between us just in time for third party to enter into the room.

The boy was young and beautiful--at least, by someone's standards. It was the look that lingered in his eyes that I had noticed in few others. Vladimir Nabokov called them "nymphet's." I called them degenerates. This one was quiet and shy, and he knew better than to meet my eyes as he slipped across the floor towards the girl. I watched him closely as he took her hands in his own and placed into her palm a token gift. "From Sir," he whispered softly, smiling fondly at the girl as she had tried to smile at me.

A low growl rose in the hollow of my throat as I watched his fingers stroke longingly along her inner wrist. His eyes never left hers and I knew in an instant that he had bewitched her. "Anael," I warned. "You linger too long."

Against my warning he dared to stroke across the vein in her wrist with the palm of his thumb again. But that was all that he dared. Finally he released her hand and averted his eyes once again before departing from the room.

But it was too late. Already the damage had been done. As I looked upon the girl again I could see that she was in tears, her face fallen. I knew all too well what he had shown her. It was his gift. An accursed gift that, at some given point in time, he had deigned to share with us all.

A body devoid of life's breath, eyes vacant, pale and unmoving. Limbs stiff and fingers unnaturally curled. Lips dry and gums receding in the mouth...

He had shown the poor girl her own death--in whatever form it was to come. Her fate flashed before her in vivid imagery, in whatever form it was to take. Showing her in grotesque detail of all she'd leave behind.