Revenge is an inhuman word.
[Lat., Inhumanum verbum est ultio.] Author: Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) Source: De Ira (II, 31)
The ancient Greeks believed that the murder of a blood relative was so severe and unforgivable a crime, that it could not be punished by mortal men. Instead, the Erinyes (Tisiphone, Alekto and Megaira) hunted the culprits down and drove them to madness until they died and their spirits were dragged to Tartarus, a hell-like place.
~Somewhere in Limbo
A cloaked figure walks barefooted through the mists of a land devoid of any colour, any shape and form... a gnarled willow tree emerges from the swirling gray, a crow perching on top, fixing the newcomer with a malicious glint in its beady black eye.
The figure speaks in a woman's clear alto voice:
"Crow my black-winged darling, croak,name the colour of my cloak!"
"Red!" The crow says.
Red, the woman thinks... colour of blood... colour of vengeance.
"Crow, my black-eyed sweetheart, caw,
name the place I never saw!
"Elysium!"
"Crow, my black-brow'd lovely, speak,
name the one that I do seek!"
"George Miller!"
"Now I asked the questions three,
will you guide the way for me?"
"As the crow flies, fool!" The crow alights from its perch and dashes into the swirling mists. The hooded woman follows silently.
***
~Somewhere in the mortal realm
As usual, the transition from one reality to the other was abrupt and slightly disorienting, no matter how many times she had experienced it before. Her back was feeling weird without the familiar weight of her wings, the small black adders had ceased crawling through her black curls, resembling nothing more than ordinary hair-clips now and even the blood had stopped its incessant drip from the corners of her dark eyes. What was left of her scarlet tears was soon washed away with the rain running down in small rivulets from the hood of the belted long jacket her red cloak had become.
The woman let her eyes wander, taking in the scenery. She was standing on the pavement of a small street lined with shops and private houses, cars going by to her left, sloshing through deep puddles formed by the torrent of rain coming down from the almost completely overcast sky.
At least the ceiling still looks like Limbo, the avenger thought wryly.
A familiar scent tickled her nostrils, and automatically, her head turned to the right, and she sniffed the damp air eagerly like a dog would do.
Indeed, her unnaturally keen sense of smell had not betrayed her. Human blood. Murder. The stench was wafting up the street in thick strands, almost visible to the inhuman being... it was no earthly scent. It came from the Otherworld, and it marked her prey, just as it had always done. Pulling up her hood again, Tisiphone set out into the street, walking calmly through the torrent of rain, remorseless, tireless, unerringly on the track of the man named George Miller.
Ho! clear is here the trace of him we seek:
Follow the track of blood, the silent sign!
Like to some hound that hunts a wounded fawn,
We snuff along the scent of dripping gore,
And inwardly we pant, for many a day
Toiling in chase that shall fordo the man;
For o'er and o'er the wide land have I ranged,
And o'er the wide sea, flying without wings,
Swift as a sail I pressed upon his track,
Who now hard by is crouching, well I wot,
For scent of mortal blood allures me here.
Follow, seek him--round and round
Scent and snuff and scan the ground,
Lest unharmed he slip away,
He who did his mother -oops, dangit: father!- slay!
Hmmm... well, it surely had not been so much of a chase but rather a stroll trough the rain, and instead of hunting the guy all over Attica, the avenger had merely walked down a few blocks. Well, everything was more glorious in the drama. If Aeschylus could see her now, perched on the glistening wet roof like an oversized gargoyle, a string of rain pouring from the rim of her hood into the eaves gutter, he surely would have laughed his wrinkly Greek arse off. Gone the days of wielding torch and snake, gone the single word that shook the earth and laid barren the land... ah, but still enough... for him: madness.
Mortal. Sweet mortal... she felt him moving about underneath her feet from time to time before he finally came to rest in one place, and the delicious scent of warm mortal blood in his veins wafted up to her, through the shingles, through the rain.
Blood. Sweet blood. Ah, but how long had it been since she had last tasted that?
Yea, from thy living limbs I suck it out,
Red, clotted, gout by gout,--
A draught abhorred of men and gods; but I
Will drain it, suck thee dry;
The rosy pink tip of her tongue darted out, eagerly licking pale lips, and the words of the ancient curse fell from her mouth, dry and hard like stone: "Thy living hearth shall be no refuge, and the walls of thy home no shelter: for thou have shed thy kindred's blood, and void is what was sacred."
She could enter now.
Pale hands gripped the rim of the drain, and then the tall woman pushed herself up in a handstand, sky and earth revolving slowly around her as she pitched forward.
Whoosh! went her cloak flapping behind her as she fell, pivoting around her iron-grip on the edge of the roof and Crash! went the glass of the window as it shattered under her boots while her body forced its way into George Miller's apartment.
Crouching in a pool of shattered glass like the beast she was, unharmed, uncut by the rain of shards, the onyx eyes of the Erinye sought out the form of the man she had come for and found him sitting bolt upright in his bed, his youthful, smooth skin very pale and blue eyes dark and wide with shock.
"Good morning, my Sweet.", she said in a sing-song voice that was all poison and honey, tilting her head to the side, smiling.
It took a while until the man found his tongue again.
"Who the hell are you? What do you want?", he shrieked, trying to cover his bare torso with his blanket.
Impassive black eyes watched the murderer scramble for a cover to preserve a tiny shred of dignity in front of her.
How... endearingly futile. You know me by heart, now, sweet little mortal, time for you to know me by mind... and it will not please you, oh no, it won't please at all...
A tiny rivulet of crimson was running down the man's shoulder from where a flying shard of glass had pierced his skin. How long had it been... The avenger could feel the acerbic scent of fear and blood wafting up from the mortal, creeping onto her tongue. It tickled her palate, made her mouth water and drew the insides of her cheeks closer to her teeth as if she had just tasted something sweet after years of languor. The first tendrils of irrationality and madness had started to wrap themselves around the man's mind, twisting, growing... she could see it clearly in the unfocused stare, the pallor of his features.
"Hell? Close, but no cigar. It is Tartarus actually.", the pale woman said in airy conversational tones, casually inching closer to the bed.
"I am Tisiphone. I came for you.", she answered his question, slowly drawing herself up tall, the smile on her face twisting into a predatory grin that showed sharp white teeth. Splintered glass crunched under her boots as she drew nearer, step by step. Shards... Like glass, his mind would shatter into a thousand pieces. Vengeance upon him. "You know why."
There was no place to run, no place to hide... still, the sandy haired man scrambled back on elbows and heels until the back of his head hit the wood of headboard of the bed, chest heaving and delicious little beads of cold sweat appearing on his face.
"What the... You're ******** insane! I don't know you! I have no idea who you are. Get the ******** out of here, or I... I..." He faltered and swallowed, hard.
"No idea? Really not?" The question came along with the raising of one feathery black eyebrow. One more step, and the woman had reached the bed, towering over her prey, her upper lip curling to reveal one gleaming, pointy eyetooth. A hop, and she was on the narrow head-piece of the bed, perching there like an oversized bird of prey, hands folded neatly on top of her knees.
The position looked weird, and by the laws of physics, the rickety board was compelled to collapse under her any moment... but it did not happen. Tisiphone shot her victim an amused grin. He could not run, could not hide... he was hers.
"Well, regarding the personal details you want to know... my name, Tisiphone, is Greek, as am I. The moniker is derived from the word tisis, which means vengeance. Thus, it makes me the avenger." Old eyes black as onyx bore deep into George’s own, contradicting the claim of her impishly smiling mouth. "Ever heard of the Erinyes? Megaira, Alekto and Tisiphone, also known as the Semnai?", she inquired in a light-hearted tone, then cocked her head to the side, declaring in a solemn, plangent manner:
"Weave the weird dance, -behold the hour // To utter forth the chant of hell, // Our sway among mankind to tell, //The guidance of our power. // Of Justice are we ministers, // And whosoe'er of men may stand // Lifting a pure unsullied hand, // That man no doom of ours incurs, // And walks thro' all his mortal path // Untouched by woe, unharmed by wrath. // But if, as yonder man, he hath // Blood on the hands he strives to hide, // We stand avengers at his side, // Decreeing, 'Thou hast wronged the dead: We are doom's witnesses to thee'. // The price of blood, his hands have shed, // We wring from him; in life, in death, // Hard at his side are we!"
The woman smiled down on the man who was trying to inch away from her overwhelming presence in the meantime. Not that it would do him any good.
"That's from a play by Aeschylus. Called 'The House of Atreus', precisely: from the third part of it, 'The Eumenides'. Tedious read, I tell ya." She gave her unwilling companion another whimsical smile.
"As for the why of my visit, let me refresh your memory a little..."
The gentle voice had dropped to a murmur, and slowly, the avenger closed the distance between them, closer, closer, as if to whisper in her victim's ear.
But no sound came from her lips, only a small breath of air, smelling of anise and spices... and of bitter almonds... and then the world turned black and silent for George... just for a moment...
The Semnai's eyes were upon her prey, fixing the young man with the same impassive stare that humans bestow on a bird in a cage or a metallic shimmering beetle pinned to a piece of cardboard, watching his pale eyes drift closed as he slipped into the realm of dreams... to the nightmare that awaited... the memories... watching as he twitched and tossed, reliving the moment that had doomed him over and over and over...
Base little fellow... nothing like the warriors of old... small and insignificant even in his sin. What courage did it take to fall over an inebriated man from behind and bludgeon him to death? Not so much as drowning an old warrior while bathing, ensnarling him in a net, eh, Clytemnestra? Or poisoning the shirt of the invincible demigod, how easy was it, Deioneira? A petty crime of greed and a moment's spurn... committed not for the sake of a throne, not for honour or revenge... small and insignificant even in that, this George was.
Why was she here? Good question.
"No... no... I did not mean... I did not... no... not... not my fault... Accident... it was an accident..." Hoarse, broken whispers from the man twisting and turning on his bed. After a while, he lay still as the pictures ceased to flow through his poisoned mind. A shudder, and he was awake again, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.
An accident?
A frown crossed the usually impassive, statuesque face of the Erinye as she heard the mortal deny his own guilt... no, impossible... she never erred. This was no mortal justice, this was divine vengeance... flawless...
And yes, there it was, the scent of innocent blood, the spirit trail, circling around the prone body in front of her, a glowing scarlet strand in her immortal sight, insubstantial in this world, but nonetheless real, crying, wailing...
What have you done? What have you done? My son, why me? Why?
Oh, he could not see it, could not hear the pleas and accusations, was oblivious to the pain and anguish... but not for long. No. She would show him. And show him good.
The dead know only one thing: they want to live again.
Tisiphone made a small movement with her right hand, as if snatching some invisible insect from the air around George's head, then held her closed fist to her lips and breathed on it. A gossamer strand of blue smoke began to take form, then slipped from her fingers to zoom around the murderer again like a sentient veil, moving jerkily, churned by impalpable gusts of wind.
"There, you can see him now. I hear him. He tells me what you did."
It whispered... whispered of a heated argument, a fight about money that the young man wanted to have and the old man was to weary to give any more... about a heavy brass trophy snatched from a stand as tempers flew high... about blood and pain...
Soon, the blue strand started to fade away until it was a mere wisp... then nothing. But still, it lingered on, and the immortal could see it as clearly as she could see the human in front of her with his sandy hair and pale skin.
"You cannot deny.", the inhuman being stated simply in a tone that made clear she'd suffer no argument. To her, his guilt was a law of nature, and she herself the fundamental principle of vengeance manifested in a physical body that never rested, never slept... that knew no sympathy nor mercy.
She was not the only one, though.
There were creatures in this world that never slept either, and one of these was the man-made, colossal watchdog that was the law. In the early morning at the break of dawn, the horrified scream of a woman had set in motion a series of events that had roused the beast and set it on the track of a murderer... for in a dumpster, the battered and bloody corpse of a man had been found.
Thus, a homicide squad was formed in the morning, but the evidence it had collected so far was scant.
A drivers licence found in the victim's wallet revealed his identity, so he next step of the process included the search of his house and the notification of the family of the deceased, which turned out to be more difficult than expected.
The morning had progressed, and the sun was up, though still invisible behind heavy clouds as the two investigating detectives reached the home of the only known relative of the dead man, one long estranged son. They parked their shiny black Lexus in front of it and got out, straightening their attire, sleek black Glocks bulging the dark fabric of their identical suits under the armpits. Silently, they crossed the run-down hall to the elevator. Expressionless faces, one pale, one bronzed, light glinting rhythmically on their glasses as they passed underneath the flickering neon lamps.
Soon, they would meet George Miller. It was time.
***
The mortal was very still now, staring at the Erinye still perching on his bed, senses overwhelmed by fear, for finally, his mind had begun to grasp the impossibility of his situation... that indeed, someone had come for him... someone not of this world.
"Sean Miller. Father of George Miller. Dead.", Tisiphone said simply, the corner of her small pink mouth twitching in momentary amusement at the reaction that brought.
"O yes... I am here for the blood of your father summoned me... but do not worry, little One... you will not go to jail for that, nor will I let them execute you.", she added in a low murmur, reaching out to gently stroke George's messy hair as if trying to comfort him.
"No my dear... When I am done with you, they will put you where your kind hides away the mad... howling at the walls... forever wandering the vast expanses of insanity... for the blood wills it so.... Come... come with me..."
Long pale fingers reached out, cupping his chin, forcing the victim of the Erinye to look into her ancient eyes, black and cold as the void between the stars, deeper, deeper, until nothing existed but those pits of utter darkness.
Come, my sweet... it is time to go.
And indeed, it was time. In her mind's eye, Tisiphone saw the solemn faces of two men heading down the corridor below with purposeful strides.
You can look, but you cannot find... he's mine... mine!
***
"Mr Miller? Mr Miller, please open up, we need to talk to you!"
No answer, not after a few firm pushes to the button of the bell, not after a few hard raps on the door. Turning to his colleague, Detective Norrington raised his eyebrows, meeting the silent gaze of Detective Jimenez, who shrugged helplessly.
"Come back lat..."
The olive-skinned Detective broke off in mid-sentence turned at hearing hasty footsteps and heavy breathing coming nearer... it figured to be a swarthy, balding man of about fifty, clad in a gray janitor's frock that was trailing behind his gaunt figure like the flaps of an Halloween scarecrow. Judging from the harrowed expression on his flushed face, something was amiss. He stopped and stared, panting open-mouthed when he saw the two gabardined men in front of the door.
"Golly..." He drew a deep breath. "Tha' was quick. Someone else call you already? A bloody mess I say, bloody mess!"
The man's hand went down to his trouser pocket, causing an alarmed exchange of glances in the two police officers, but it figured he was merely retrieving a huge ring of keys, toddling forward to open the door.
"Sucker's not opening up, eh? Damn him! Whole window's gone. Big hole. What a bloody mess!"
The two Detectives blinked in unison. It went unnoticed by the older man as the lock clicked and the door swung open.
"Stand back!", cautioned Norrington, his professional attitude taking over as he peered inside, drawing his Glock, motioning to his partner to give him cover.
"Wait.. you guys not from the insurance company?" The question was answered by the flashing of a very official badge and the express instruction to stand back.
"Nobody home." The Glock returned to its holster as Norrington finished his inspection of the single room and looked around, hands on his hips.
"That's really one big mess. Wonder how he did that. All o' the glass's inside.", he commented the shards and rainwater spoiling the floor.
"One bloody mess, too.", his partner quipped, prodding the red-stained duvet on the bed with the butt-end of his biro.
His colleague nodded and whipped out his cell phone.
"Operator? This is Norrington. I need CSI on location..."
***
~Far, far away...
"Ahhh... this is much, much better, don't you agree?", Tisiphone said mockingly, looking down at the shivering wretch of a man in her arms as she unfurled a pair of giant black wings with the sharp sound of a turning sail.
They had reached Limbo, the gray void between worlds, revealing her for what she was: fangs, bleeding eyes, crawling adders and all. This was her hiding place, her refuge, and this was where he was hers, and hers alone. He tried to push her away, tried to escape, but she was stronger, and her dark wings closed around him in an embrace that ended all resistance.
A long, drawn-out cry echoed through the massive gray void of Otherworld... and then there was silence.
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