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Mist surrounded Raede, and a sense of urgency. There was something that she needed to do, quickly. Images teased her from the mist. A man in a greatcoat, his features indistinct though she was certain that she knew him, strode past her into the mist, his steps sure and confident.
This is a dream, Raede realized, no...a vision. Past? Future? Present? In dreamy lassitude, Raede cursed her unreliable perceptions.
On her left a tunnel spilled out from the darkness, like a maw opening, daring her to pass the shifting edges. She entered it, ghosting past barren walls and empty sconces. At the end of the passage was a locked door with a window cut into it, guarded by heavy bars of iron. When she tried to peer through them the mist pressed thickly against her face. Ahead, she could see an indistinct, flickering glow, as from a fire. The air smelled of smoke and sweat, and blood. Silhouetted against the glow, several figures circled a bier, upon which something writhed silently. Or someone.
The sense of urgency grew.
She struggled to open the door and it suddenly melted away before her efforts. Raede stumbled forward, foot snagging on something. She looked down. Tree roots. The air was cold and damp, the mist swirling heavily about her. She had to find...him. The man in the greatcoat. Before...it was too late. Despair ripped at her, pain dazed her. She gasped in agony as ropes tightened on her limbs, though she recognized that the throat she cried out with was not her own. Helplessness, and shame and above all, the terrible knowledge that there was no hope, there must never be hope. He could use hope to break her completely.
Raede awoke with a gasp, and sat up in bed, shivering.
Past, present or future?
The images had faded, but the urgency lingered like a phantom pain. Future, then, or present. Raede threw back the coverlet and found her way to the fireplace. The flames had died down to smoldering coals, but the lingering heat made it a simple matter to rekindle the blaze.
Damnation, what I wouldn't give for a...memory failed her, save for the single image of a device which would produce flame without resort to kindling. Raede cursed again, wishing the memories plaguing her would either reveal themselves fully or cease bedeviling her altogether. Not for the first time, she wondered if they were truly memories or perhaps some sort of bizarre vision.
Who am I, and why am I here?
Raede shook the thought away as she dressed. Where else should she be but here? London was her home, she had been born here.
No, that was someone else, a voice whispered inside her head. This is not your home.
Where is home, then?
Far, far away.
Why am I here?
There will be a reason. A terrible, terrible reason. A memory suddenly forced itself past the barriers that protected her, of a miriad of curved teeth snapping at her from many mouths, all controlled by the same mind. Horror choked off the scream that convulsed in her throat. Something reached from the depths of her mind and plucked away the image, dragging it back into the darkness. She heard the sound of whimpering, and opened her eyes to find herself curled into a fetal position on the cold wooden floor.
I take it back. I take it all back. I don't want to remember. She crawled to the fire and lay there against the grate until she had stopped shivering.
Did her earlier vision, and the man she had seen in the mist, have anything to do with the nightmare image that she could now barely recall?
No. She didn't know why she was certain, but there was no feeling of them being connected. With that thought, the sense of urgency she had felt earlier returned with renewed strength, as well as a faint sense of direction that seemed to grow weaker with every passing breath.
Garth and Blair were not particularly pleased to be rousted from their beds in the middle of a cold night, but they knew better than to complain. At least, not out loud.
It was another fifteen minutes before Blair get the carriage dragged out and a horse installed between the traces. He climbed up to his customary perch and gathered up the traces. "So. Where are we off to?"
It was frustrating that she had no idea. "Toward London. Stop occasionally and I'll figure out the direction."
Blair shrugged, well acquainted with Raede's peculiarities, but Garth gave her an unreadable look before climbing up beside his partner. Raede swung into the carriage interior and pulled the door shut, and then there was the crack of a whip and the carriage swayed into motion.
They worked their way through the Newgate district, stopping once to backtrack along Hoffinger street, and then proceeded down St. John's. Raede braced herself against the rocking of the carriage, arms crossed, jamming her clenched fists into the warmth of her armpits. The sense of direction, which had been quite strong earlier, faded with each passing breath. Her lungs hurt, and her toes burned with frozen fire despite the thickness of her boots.
Then, all motion ceased. She peered out of the window and caught sight of a thick stand of trees and an expanse of what must be lawn, partly hidden beneath a thin carpet of mist..
"Road ends here", Blair reported. "Where do we go?"
She opened the door and climbed down, her senses reeling beneath a barrage of conflicting sensations. Her fingers were warm beneath the gloves, and yet they ached with a cold that numbed the pain that shot up her arms.
Her sense of direction led directly into the trees. "In there."
"Botanical Park?" Blair gave a sigh and anchored the horse to a convenient hitching post. "Okay. You're the boss."
They followed her across the gently rolling lawn, and beneath the shelter of ancient oaks clothed in moonlight. Mist closed around them, muting the cold blue light that dappled their path, and Raede sent out a thread of that sense which always warned her of the approach of any living beings.
Nothing. The park was deserted.
"What are we looking for?" Garth whispered, and then fell silent, presumably reprimanded by Blair.
The great trunks rose all around them, up beyond sight into the mist. The ground was broken with branches and roots. Raede heard someone stumble behind her, then a low curse from Blair.
Suddenly, something tickled on the edge of her perceptions. Someone, no, more than one person was moving away. She turned and signaled to Blair, who took Garth and slipped off in the direction she had indicated.
The mist parted before her into a clearing flanked by neatly trimmed hedges. Raede recognized their shape from her dream memory, and as she peered out from her shadowed refuge the mist melted away from something white, in the center of the clearing.
A man's body lay exposed to the moonlight, the pale flesh of his chest marked with a myriad of small discolorations, barely rising and falling as the faint ghost of his breath dissipated in the stillness. Spread eagled on a small rise, bound with rough hemp to four iron stakes buried in the neatly manicured lawn, the man's limbs were stretched so tautly that the cords of his wiry sinews stood well defined even in the near dark.
It took her a moment to place him, so uncongruous did it seem to find the man here, in this condition. Holmes. It was Sherlock Holmes.
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