giggle.
Sunny whipped her head around trying to locate the source of the voice, but Eile was more disturbed by Differel's reaction. She went rigid, as if having a seizure, and bit off the end of her cigarillo, which dropped on the marble floor in a small shower of sparks. She squeezed her eyes shut with a grimace and jammed her fists into each temple.
"Who said that?"
Differel snapped to attention and stared at Sunny in utter disbelief. "You...you heard that?!"
"Wellllll, yeah, naturally," Sunny said, her eyes wide with wonder. "Who is she?"
Differel charged straight at her and grabbed her by both arms. "You really heard her?!" She shook Sunny hard enough to whip her hair around her head.
"Cut it out!" Eile said. "Let her go, we both heard it!"
Differel threw Sunny at Eile and backed away from them. "How do I know you're not lying? How...how do I know you're even real!? Maybe you're just more hallucinations! Merciful God in Heaven, I may actually be going mad!! I can't live like this! Dear God, please, make it stop; make it stop--"
Eile strode up to Differel and slapped her across the face so hard she turned her head and knocked off her glasses. The blue-blood glared a look of outrage and slugged her in the mouth. Eile flew back and Sunny caught her before she fell.
"What the bloody hell did you do that for?!?"
"You were wiggin' out!" Eile replied as Sunny put her on her feet. "I couldn't think of anything else ta do."
Differel made an effort to calm herself, but still stared daggers at her. "Hmph. Well, it worked, but never do that again."
Eile tested her jaw. "Don't worry, you've gotta a right cross that can fell an ox, lady. So what's going on anyways?"
Differel took a moment to retrieve her glasses and head back to her desk. "It started a fortnight ago. I heard the voice for the first time as I was falling asleep. I awoke, but no one was in my room, and I assumed it was just a dream. But I heard it again, louder and clearer, the next night, and then the next night, and the night after that."
She paused to select another cigarillo and light it; Eile noted her hands still shook. "It kept talking to me, night after night, incessant, more frequent and longer each time, until I could barely sleep. Meanwhile I started hearing it during the day. It would break in while I was on the phone, in a meeting, receiving a report; then when I was reading or exercising, or just trying to relax. I never know when I'll hear it, or for how long." She put her hands over her ears as if trying to deaden some cacophony. "And I cannot block it out; no matter what I try, it breaks through my thoughts and hammers at my brain like a pile driver."
She dropped her hands and turned to look at them. "That's when I told the others. I hoped Vlad had been aware of it and would vouch for me, but he denied knowing anything. They tried to be sympathetic, but they were convinced I was merely suffering from stress."
She took a deep, rattling breath. "I almost believed them, but then I started seeing her! At first it was in my dreams, then I would catch glimpses of her in halls and rooms, just flashes out of the corners of my eyes. But then she started leering around corners and through windows, popping out from behind furniture, standing just inside when I opened doors--Vlad never saw a thing!"
She took another rattled breath. "By then I was deteriorating rapidly and I was sure they would pack me away to a sanitarium any moment. I was becoming paranoid; thank God you two are here now, because I doubt I would have lasted another day."
"What does she look like?" Sunny asked.
Differel gave her a sharp look. "What?"
"The girl you've been seeing; what does she look like?"
"Like me," the voice said. Eile turned with the others and saw a girl fade in from nothing as she pirouetted across the room towards the desk. But Eile realized she wasn't a girl at all. She looked like a late-twentysomething woman who dressed and acted like a child. She was short and petite, which added to the illusion, but there was a maturity of face and figure that belied her playacting. She was dressed in what looked like a Sailor Moon senshi uniform like some kind of cosplayer, except over it she wore an open cape-like coat. She also looked fairly normal, except for the baroque style of the clothes and ornaments, and the fact that everything about her was in various shades of orange: costume, hair, eyes, lips, cosmetics, fingernails; even her skin had an orange tinge to it instead of pink.
As she approached, she giggled, warbled, and bubbled laughter, until she came to a stop just in front of the desk and faced them, a huge grin on her face. She jammed the index fingers of both hands into her cheeks and cried, "Ain't I cute?!"
She acted and sounded like a lunatic, which, Eile realized with shock, was exactly what she was.
From "Felis ex Machina"
One of the problems with being a time traveler is finding a way to support yourself in the past, since rarely can you take sufficient funds with you. This is especially the case if you intend to pass yourself off as a well-heeled gentleman of leisure. I am a scholar of the mythology of the Outre Beings, and I had returned to England of the Victorian Age to do research on the pervasiveness of that mythology in British society. As such, I needed to adopt a persona that would allow me to conduct my investigations freely. That of a dilettante aristocrat seemed the most useful, but that in turn required having a fair amount of wealth to perpetuate the lifestyle, and despite my ingenuity in establishing a nest egg, I was soon forced to find a source of income. Considering my profession, the most obvious choice was that of a consulting detective. Of course, the irony of the situation was not lost on me. As a child I had devoured the stories of Sherlock Holmes, and now I had a chance to emulate him in Victorian London. How could I resist?
Naturally, I have my equivalents of John Watson, Irene Adler, Mrs. Hudson, and Giles Lestrade, but I also have additional assets that Holmes could never dream of. Despite the limitations of the device I use to travel through time, I am able to bring with me any item I can carry. As such, I have a number of accoutrements that make investigation easier, especially since I have neither Holmes's talent for observation nor his powers of deductive reasoning. And I have Bastet, my familiar and companion. Though she is invaluable in too many ways to briefly list, she is especially useful as a mnemonic device: people tend to remember the consulting detective with the uncannily perceptive cat.
Jade and I had just settled to enjoy an evening alone when Mrs. Peele, our landlady, knocked at the door to the suite of rooms I rent. She had in her hand a message, delivered, she said, by commissionaire. I read it over briefly, then handed it to Jade as I took off my dressing gown and began to put on suitable evening attire.
"It is from Gerrarde," I said.
"I can see that," she replied in a testy tone of voice. Jade is her professional name; her full name is Miss Annabelle Camille. She is a remarkable woman in many ways, not the least of which for her stunning looks, statuesque figure, and rich mahogany hair. Her trade is acting and singing, but her true profession is that of adventuress. When I first arrived in 1880, she was between "clients" and had latched onto me as her next conquest. Before I was able to discourage her, however, she had learned who I really was, so it became necessary for me to keep her close so as to ensure her silence. That in turn meant making her my partner (in more ways than one), but so far I have not had cause to regret it; she can be most diverting, and she has access to sources of information I do not have and can go places I cannot.
She tossed the message onto a nearby table and took off her robe. "Why would he need to see us this late in the day?" She sounded somewhat perturbed. Carmichael Gerrarde is an inspector with the Criminal Investigation Division of Scotland Yard; he is also a good friend, and one of only four people, including Jade, who know who and what I really am.
"I would imagine he has a case on which he would like to consult with us."
She smirked as she squirmed into her best evening dress. "Why am I not surprised?" She does not have much confidence in Gerrarde's abilities as an investigator. While it
is true that he tends to solve his cases through dogged persistence and systematic diligence rather than imaginative brilliance, he is nonetheless a highly competent detective in his own right, not to mention a keener observer than myself, and I always call on him whenever I need an official police presence to make an arrest. I also often hire him when I need some old fashioned legwork done that Jade or my other friends can not handle, since by law a CID man can act as a private investigator provided it does not interfere with his official duties. As well, being a Freemason and a lower echelon member of the Theosophical Society, not to mention a confirmed spiritualist, he is remarkably open-minded concerning the occult. Besides, the cases he works with me in both an official and private capacity have convinced him there is more to it than what he knows or believes.
"Now, that will do, my dear. I eminently respect his instincts, and he obviously felt this was most urgent."
"Too urgent to wait until morning?"
"We shall see."
"Well, at least help me get dressed; we'll be on our way faster then."
We took a hansom cab into Westminster directly to Great Scotland Yard. Gerrarde met us in the lobby. He is short and thin as a rail, with a full head of wavy charcoal hair and sharp gray