Search for my Savior
Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 3:53 pm
Let me see if I can divert the debate that seems brewing, if it hasn’t escalated outright. The ambiguous title was intentional. We have talked about enlightenment and redemption enough that this seems appropriate. As I have stated before, I do not know if I have a soul or not; nor will I speculate. But if the case proves to be negative and I have none, then my next step in “redemption” is either recovering it or going a step lower: my Free Will, which I can say confidently I do have. If the time comes that I must recover my soul, I will do so. But at the moment, I will act upon the goal that seems within reach: identifying the one who killed Boaz, and thus returned my Will. The loss of my powers was no illusion; I still cannot recall the shadowy figure as a man or a woman, wizard or warrior; the link with my master severed at his death, so I cannot use the battle he went through, or any of his memories, as reference. So here is a memorandum, if you will, of my search. Perhaps it will come in handy. If not to others, it will to me.
In spite of all the . . . adventures in the recent nights, I had not put off my search for the one who had returned to me my Will. Let me condense weeks of investigation and research, ever since my memory started returning, into one sentence: I had returned to the city of my Freeing and had tracked down the room where the girl had once been held hostage. And I stalked the room cautiously, testing the air for scents, testing the ether for psychic signatures. But it had been abandoned for all those years, and on top of that, it looked like the building had been started on a demolitions project. But the project had not been finished. The signs of struggle were still evident; but they were also intermingled in the decomposition of time and negligence. The unfinished destruction had left the entire ground floor without walls save for the outer one, making it one single, large room. One corner of the building was buried in rubble and decay; the other three maintained the edifice’s weight with a forlorn weariness.
I cautiously dug through the wreckage of the lost corner in search of further clues. I found the remains of the shattered chair amidst the fallen remains of the wall. Beneath the dust and debris, I also found several spots of brown blood on the cement.
But the most interesting piece of evidence I found was a long piece of silver. It was thin and flat, bent at the end and resembling something of a check mark because of it. The scents it had once borne had long since vanished with the age and the crushing presence of time and dust, but I still found it oddly . . . fascinating. It looked like the piece of silver had been tightly folded; along the edge where the crook bent downward was still sharp, and I waited for a second for the flesh on my fingers to heal. The concave side possessed a slight indentation all along the edge, with just enough space for a few papers to slide in like a folder. Both ends of the piece of silver were slightly jagged. Sniffing about, I was unable to find any more clues. However, scanning the outer grounds, I did smell the outskirts of a gathering of unwashed bodies.
I followed the scent, memories coming even as I did.
I approached the gathering guardedly. There were about a dozen of them all told, congregating around three steel drums with slow fires flickering from their open tops. I stayed outside of the circle of light created by the flames, watching them and measuring attitudes and identities. Just because they were friendly to each other didn’t mean they would be friendly to a stranger. They were talking to each other in low voices, the babble like a small stream, interspersed by the occasional complain and a cussword.
They shivered slightly at my approach, exactly as I had warranted. Two of the ragged men parted to give me room by the fire. I held out my hand as though to arm it, although the fire did nothing to comfort nor to spread its warmth to my dead flesh.
“Good evening to you gentlemen,” I said amicably. There was a general murmur of replied greeting. “Is all going well?” Another murmur of variant answers.
We didn’t speak further for some minutes, simply warming hands and watching the dance of the orange glow. I could sense the other men at the separate fire-pits looking at me uneasily, but I pretended not to notice. I kept in mind Sifu’s teachings, and I brought the thoughts of patience undeath could potentially give me into the forefront of my mind.
“You’re new here. Traveling far?” one man asked, an older fellow with gray whiskers pressing in on the cinnamon of his beard. I pondered the question, its implications.
“Maybe,” I shrugged. “At the moment, from Chicago to Cypress Cove and beyond, before coming here. But from here, I cannot be sure.”
Another murmur of agreement from the others. “I’m looking for someone,” I added in what I hoped was an offhanded remark.
“Have ya tried Dirty Gina’s Nightlife Club?” one of the old men to my right spit into the fire. “I think you’d do well there.”
Curse old men and their lecherous ways.
“I’m not that kind of girl,” I turned my head to stare at the old man.
“Of course you’re not,” he muttered in a gravelly tone I couldn’t decipher, though he hunched his shoulders and stared back into the fire after he failed to penetrate my gaze, stretching out his hands so far to the fire it looked like he might burn them.
“Good place, though,” another said brightly. “Fine women. But you didn’t hear that from me!” Everyone but me laughed. After a minute, the others resumed their own conversations.
“Is this person a friend of yours? A boy or a girl?” the cinnamon-bearded man inquired, moving in a little closer. “Relative? Boyfriend? How old? What do they look like? We can’t help ya if you’re going to be so closemouthed about it all, girl.”
Where was this man when Willie and I had been in Saginaw? I decided to be daring.
“A vampire hunter.”
There was an immediate hush.
“Vampire hunter?” the friendly man repeated as though to try the name out. He stared hard at me. “Why are you looking for a vampire hunter?”
I spoke slowly, wording my answer carefully into the vague truth. “He . . . gave something to me. I would like to return the favor.”
Silence for literal minutes. Cinnamon continued to stare at me hard.
Thankfully, I had made it a habit to alter my aura whenever I dealt with humans.
Otherwise, his use of psionics would have detected my vampirism.
____________________________________________________________________________________
“What did he give you?” Cinnamon asked finally.
“My life,” I said, for it was the truth as I spoke it. “He saved me from a Master vampire who would have otherwise consigned me to a never-ending Hell as a secondary under his thumb.”
He nodded solemnly and then glanced about as though looking for hidden enemies. He looked back at me. When he spoke again, it was with some reluctance, as though the information he was giving out was required upon asking, but of a dangerous nature.
“Arthur Nordstorme,” he spoke more to the direction of the waving flames in the steel drum than to me, his weathered face creased with a smudged frown and his wrinkled hands stretched out to gather in the warmth of the fire. “Arthur Nordstorme is probably the man you’re looking for.”
“Do you know where I can find him?” I hardly dared hope. But the man shook his head, no. “He doesn’t live here, hasn’t been to visit since he staked the last vampire that roamed here.”
“How long ago was that?” I asked.
He calculated in his head. “It would be sometime the year before last. About February or so.” Had I still had breath, I would have caught it. “We don’t see him very often,” he continued, oblivious to the clue he gave me. “Last time he came here before that was about . . .” He paused. I took a risk.
“Four years before that?” My tone was quiet, and by the reaction, I knew I was right. I had struck an artery. He jerked his eyes to my face and stared intently, but my defenses were still in place. After some quite moments passed of his reading my false aura intently, he nodded and returned his gaze back to the fire.
“Aye. That’s right,” he reluctantly assented. “The vampire had kidnapped a little girl. Nordstorme saved her.”
The group and I peered into the flames in the same way a Firewalker might in order to divine some hidden knowledge, but for us, nothing revealed itself. I had a name to go by now, but that was still a long shot from finding him. I had other leads I knew, but now came the internal struggle of righting the wrongs I had committed or equipping the patience I would need to track my savior. I had a debt to pay, and I wanted to repay it. But there were more important matters to attend to.
“The little girl kidnapped by the vampire,” I started softly, careful to keep the perpetrator down to my master. There was no need to let them know I had inside information that could not be garnered by the . . . good guys. “The things she went through . . . must have been unspeakable.”
“Aye,” the ragged fellow agreed. “Nobody should have to go through something like that. Most people would be scarred for life.”
“Was she?” I had not been present when she had escaped, so I knew nothing of her condition.
He hunched his shoulders morosely. “Probably.”
“How has she coped?”
“Don’t know,” he spat through lips growing jittery with the cold. But a poorly-timed shudder set the spittle all along his chin. He angrily wiped it away with the heel of his hand and sniffed disdainfully. “Too many bad memories; she was kidnapped direct from her home and held in a condemned building she passed every morning going to that private school she used to go to. She couldn’t cope well with that. Her family don’t talk ‘bout it, and nobody asks. Think they’d like to forget the whole thing. Wouldn’t you?”
I looked inward. The question held more than one implication for me.
The others in the group were becoming uncomfortable with the discussion. They were slowly edging away from the steel drum and on to another. I kept them within my peripheral attention, marking every move they made. Humans may not be very strong, but they were not stupid. I had to watch my words and make sure I didn’t let something slip. Cinnamon and I remained silent for several minutes, but the others didn’t return. Instead, they continued to huddle around the other fires, crowded as it became. I didn’t want to press my luck. I had a name to go by. That would do just fine.
“Well, thank you,” I gathered my arms around me and withdrew from the fire. “You’ve given me much to think about.”
“Don’t mention it,” he clasped his hands together and rubbed his palms vigorously. I was just at the edge of the firelight when he called me back.
“Ma’am?” I turned to face him. “Hobbes was kidding when he suggested ya try Ginny’s. But you might want to go for it anyway. She has a good head for information and hears things most others don’t. But watch your step, ‘cuz it is an underground brothel. Ask for Muriel. And tell her Gordon sent you.” He tapped his chest. “That’s me.”
I nodded. “Thank you, Gordon.”
He waggled his head in return and turned back to the heat of the fire.
I headed out for the next leg of my investigation.
In spite of all the . . . adventures in the recent nights, I had not put off my search for the one who had returned to me my Will. Let me condense weeks of investigation and research, ever since my memory started returning, into one sentence: I had returned to the city of my Freeing and had tracked down the room where the girl had once been held hostage. And I stalked the room cautiously, testing the air for scents, testing the ether for psychic signatures. But it had been abandoned for all those years, and on top of that, it looked like the building had been started on a demolitions project. But the project had not been finished. The signs of struggle were still evident; but they were also intermingled in the decomposition of time and negligence. The unfinished destruction had left the entire ground floor without walls save for the outer one, making it one single, large room. One corner of the building was buried in rubble and decay; the other three maintained the edifice’s weight with a forlorn weariness.
I cautiously dug through the wreckage of the lost corner in search of further clues. I found the remains of the shattered chair amidst the fallen remains of the wall. Beneath the dust and debris, I also found several spots of brown blood on the cement.
But the most interesting piece of evidence I found was a long piece of silver. It was thin and flat, bent at the end and resembling something of a check mark because of it. The scents it had once borne had long since vanished with the age and the crushing presence of time and dust, but I still found it oddly . . . fascinating. It looked like the piece of silver had been tightly folded; along the edge where the crook bent downward was still sharp, and I waited for a second for the flesh on my fingers to heal. The concave side possessed a slight indentation all along the edge, with just enough space for a few papers to slide in like a folder. Both ends of the piece of silver were slightly jagged. Sniffing about, I was unable to find any more clues. However, scanning the outer grounds, I did smell the outskirts of a gathering of unwashed bodies.
I followed the scent, memories coming even as I did.
I approached the gathering guardedly. There were about a dozen of them all told, congregating around three steel drums with slow fires flickering from their open tops. I stayed outside of the circle of light created by the flames, watching them and measuring attitudes and identities. Just because they were friendly to each other didn’t mean they would be friendly to a stranger. They were talking to each other in low voices, the babble like a small stream, interspersed by the occasional complain and a cussword.
They shivered slightly at my approach, exactly as I had warranted. Two of the ragged men parted to give me room by the fire. I held out my hand as though to arm it, although the fire did nothing to comfort nor to spread its warmth to my dead flesh.
“Good evening to you gentlemen,” I said amicably. There was a general murmur of replied greeting. “Is all going well?” Another murmur of variant answers.
We didn’t speak further for some minutes, simply warming hands and watching the dance of the orange glow. I could sense the other men at the separate fire-pits looking at me uneasily, but I pretended not to notice. I kept in mind Sifu’s teachings, and I brought the thoughts of patience undeath could potentially give me into the forefront of my mind.
“You’re new here. Traveling far?” one man asked, an older fellow with gray whiskers pressing in on the cinnamon of his beard. I pondered the question, its implications.
“Maybe,” I shrugged. “At the moment, from Chicago to Cypress Cove and beyond, before coming here. But from here, I cannot be sure.”
Another murmur of agreement from the others. “I’m looking for someone,” I added in what I hoped was an offhanded remark.
“Have ya tried Dirty Gina’s Nightlife Club?” one of the old men to my right spit into the fire. “I think you’d do well there.”
Curse old men and their lecherous ways.
“I’m not that kind of girl,” I turned my head to stare at the old man.
“Of course you’re not,” he muttered in a gravelly tone I couldn’t decipher, though he hunched his shoulders and stared back into the fire after he failed to penetrate my gaze, stretching out his hands so far to the fire it looked like he might burn them.
“Good place, though,” another said brightly. “Fine women. But you didn’t hear that from me!” Everyone but me laughed. After a minute, the others resumed their own conversations.
“Is this person a friend of yours? A boy or a girl?” the cinnamon-bearded man inquired, moving in a little closer. “Relative? Boyfriend? How old? What do they look like? We can’t help ya if you’re going to be so closemouthed about it all, girl.”
Where was this man when Willie and I had been in Saginaw? I decided to be daring.
“A vampire hunter.”
There was an immediate hush.
“Vampire hunter?” the friendly man repeated as though to try the name out. He stared hard at me. “Why are you looking for a vampire hunter?”
I spoke slowly, wording my answer carefully into the vague truth. “He . . . gave something to me. I would like to return the favor.”
Silence for literal minutes. Cinnamon continued to stare at me hard.
Thankfully, I had made it a habit to alter my aura whenever I dealt with humans.
Otherwise, his use of psionics would have detected my vampirism.
____________________________________________________________________________________
“What did he give you?” Cinnamon asked finally.
“My life,” I said, for it was the truth as I spoke it. “He saved me from a Master vampire who would have otherwise consigned me to a never-ending Hell as a secondary under his thumb.”
He nodded solemnly and then glanced about as though looking for hidden enemies. He looked back at me. When he spoke again, it was with some reluctance, as though the information he was giving out was required upon asking, but of a dangerous nature.
“Arthur Nordstorme,” he spoke more to the direction of the waving flames in the steel drum than to me, his weathered face creased with a smudged frown and his wrinkled hands stretched out to gather in the warmth of the fire. “Arthur Nordstorme is probably the man you’re looking for.”
“Do you know where I can find him?” I hardly dared hope. But the man shook his head, no. “He doesn’t live here, hasn’t been to visit since he staked the last vampire that roamed here.”
“How long ago was that?” I asked.
He calculated in his head. “It would be sometime the year before last. About February or so.” Had I still had breath, I would have caught it. “We don’t see him very often,” he continued, oblivious to the clue he gave me. “Last time he came here before that was about . . .” He paused. I took a risk.
“Four years before that?” My tone was quiet, and by the reaction, I knew I was right. I had struck an artery. He jerked his eyes to my face and stared intently, but my defenses were still in place. After some quite moments passed of his reading my false aura intently, he nodded and returned his gaze back to the fire.
“Aye. That’s right,” he reluctantly assented. “The vampire had kidnapped a little girl. Nordstorme saved her.”
The group and I peered into the flames in the same way a Firewalker might in order to divine some hidden knowledge, but for us, nothing revealed itself. I had a name to go by now, but that was still a long shot from finding him. I had other leads I knew, but now came the internal struggle of righting the wrongs I had committed or equipping the patience I would need to track my savior. I had a debt to pay, and I wanted to repay it. But there were more important matters to attend to.
“The little girl kidnapped by the vampire,” I started softly, careful to keep the perpetrator down to my master. There was no need to let them know I had inside information that could not be garnered by the . . . good guys. “The things she went through . . . must have been unspeakable.”
“Aye,” the ragged fellow agreed. “Nobody should have to go through something like that. Most people would be scarred for life.”
“Was she?” I had not been present when she had escaped, so I knew nothing of her condition.
He hunched his shoulders morosely. “Probably.”
“How has she coped?”
“Don’t know,” he spat through lips growing jittery with the cold. But a poorly-timed shudder set the spittle all along his chin. He angrily wiped it away with the heel of his hand and sniffed disdainfully. “Too many bad memories; she was kidnapped direct from her home and held in a condemned building she passed every morning going to that private school she used to go to. She couldn’t cope well with that. Her family don’t talk ‘bout it, and nobody asks. Think they’d like to forget the whole thing. Wouldn’t you?”
I looked inward. The question held more than one implication for me.
The others in the group were becoming uncomfortable with the discussion. They were slowly edging away from the steel drum and on to another. I kept them within my peripheral attention, marking every move they made. Humans may not be very strong, but they were not stupid. I had to watch my words and make sure I didn’t let something slip. Cinnamon and I remained silent for several minutes, but the others didn’t return. Instead, they continued to huddle around the other fires, crowded as it became. I didn’t want to press my luck. I had a name to go by. That would do just fine.
“Well, thank you,” I gathered my arms around me and withdrew from the fire. “You’ve given me much to think about.”
“Don’t mention it,” he clasped his hands together and rubbed his palms vigorously. I was just at the edge of the firelight when he called me back.
“Ma’am?” I turned to face him. “Hobbes was kidding when he suggested ya try Ginny’s. But you might want to go for it anyway. She has a good head for information and hears things most others don’t. But watch your step, ‘cuz it is an underground brothel. Ask for Muriel. And tell her Gordon sent you.” He tapped his chest. “That’s me.”
I nodded. “Thank you, Gordon.”
He waggled his head in return and turned back to the heat of the fire.
I headed out for the next leg of my investigation.
