The Compass
by Deborah Koren © 2005-6
First Published on Ragged Edge Publishing, the Ezine
It was a dark and stormy night.
Nora grasped at the balcony railing as the storm's winds caressed her. Her satin robe billowed, and her long hair lifted off her neck as she swayed with the gathering winds. The cityscape rose around her, all needle peaks and vertiginous canyons, with so many lights and reflected lights that the night was never dark, and the roof of clouds overhead glowed orange.
She felt the tendril of evil, snaking through the humid night, looking for someone to strike, and she moaned. Always the same, that evil creeping over the city each night. She felt it in her very pulse, and she threw back her head and screamed in defiance at the same moment the first bolt of lightning streaked out of the sky, and the deafening thunder merged with her voice.
She closed her eyes and brought the storm crashing down on the city. Like burying her head under a pillow to not hear, not see, it was the only way to hide from what she alone could feel seeping through the night. Quiet never worked for her. Only the storm. Crashing thunder and brilliant lightning. She hid in a torrent of noise and light. Only then, for a short spells, could she fight the presence of evil.
***
As they exited the apartment's front door, Danika tried to unlink her arm from Colin's, but he just drew her in closer. The heat radiating off his body, in a night already too hot and humid made her ill. She gritted her teeth and clenched slender fingers into fists. Her gold rings bit into her flesh, but she didn't care. "Let me go," she said.
"Here's the car," he said.
The purple and gold uniformed valet braked the Jaguar in front of the apartment's red carpet entrance and hopped out.
My car, she thought. My car, my money, my apartment...
Colin finally released her to open the passenger door for her. She turned and walked quickly away.
"Danika, baby," he called after her, and she heard the undercurrent of anger threading through his voice. She ignored him and followed the curving entrance driveway out from under the apartment building's weight and onto the open sidewalk. The sharp breeze caught her on the face, and she took a deep breath. Rain was coming. Lightning forked overhead, and the thunder reverberated through the streets, amplified by the huge buildings on either side.
She felt rather than heard him coming up behind her, and she started walking again, heading down the street.
"Danika," he said, coming up beside her. "I thought you wanted to go to Korby's tonight."
"I changed my mind."
"Baby, you can't change your mind. I got reservations."
She stopped and turned to look up at him. Dark-hair framed a narrow forehead, long nose, sharp chin. His lips were pursed and his dark eyes carried the same orange reflection as the storm clouds above. "Reservations in my name," she said.
He spread his hands, spider-fingered, and grinned at her. "Your name opens doors, baby."
She stared at him a moment, wondering why she'd ever found him attractive. She shook her head suddenly and said, "Colin, get lost." She turned and started walking again. Janice's apartment building was eight blocks down, a building nearly as tall as her own. Danika would spend the next few days with her, while the locks were changed on her own apartment, and all evidence that Colin had existed in her life was excised. She could even sell the penthouse, get a bigger one at the brand new Camelot building across town. Money had its uses.
Fingers closed abruptly over her left arm, dragging her around in a half-circle. Colin glared down at her. "Get lost? Get lost ?"
Lightning flashed overhead and thunder drowned out his next words.
"We're through," Danika said. "Over. Done. Go find someone else to leech off of."
He laughed then, an ugly hoarse sound, as he shook his head. "Oh, no, baby. No, no, no."
"Let me go," she said. Her gaze flicked down the street towards her apartment building's entrance, towards where the valet and her car waited out of sight.
He seemed to follow her line of sight, for he laughed again and said, "Think they care about the little rich girl? All they want is your money. That's all anyone wants from someone like you."
His fingers tightened around her arm, and he began dragging her down the sidewalk.
She clawed at his fingers with her other hand, trying to pry them loose, but his grip just clamped tighter and tighter until she gasped. She swung her purse at his head, but he caught it in his hand, ripped it free, and tossed it into the gutter. He pulled her along, cutting right into a narrow alley between buildings. He released her then, shoving her so she came up hard against the wall.
He looked down both directions of the alleyway. "Just us, baby. You and me. The way it's supposed to be." Smiling, he stepped in closer, close enough that she could slap him. The sound of it startled her more than the sudden sting in her hand, and she hesitated a moment too long before trying to run. His reprisal backhand knocked her to the ground.
***
Nora opened her eyes and stared out at the city's hundreds of buildings. Man constructed his buildings with no sense of propriety, she thought. Like skeletons without flesh, like a tree without spring's foliage, the high rises stood naked and obscenely proud. She hated them. Hated the metal and glass structures. She saw each structure as a testament to mankind's need to replace true life with achievements and self-awarded trophies.
She'd tried to run away once. The evil had not followed. It had stayed in the city, preying on those it could. But distance had only diminished, not relieved, her ability to feel its presence. Instead of an escape, her country home had become a prison, where she could still feel the evil, but could no longer do anything to stop it. She had given up and returned to her high rise apartment, to the steel spires and concrete valleys, to creating increasingly violent stormy nights that only partially blocked the pain that haunted her, but where she still could make a difference, every now and then.
***
Danika's jaw and cheek throbbed and her palms and knees stung from skidding on the asphalt. Pain and rage flared in her brain, like the lightning overhead, not focused, but wild and overflowing, seeking an outlet. She couldn't see, couldn't hear. Thunder crashed around her, so close, so loud that the ground trembled beneath her.
His hands grabbed her, turning her over, so he could straddle her. "Leech? You called me a leech?" he was saying. "Leeches aren't bad. They're used to suck the poison out of wounds. That's just what I'm going to do to you. Suck the poison out of you."
She thrashed against him until he pulled a knife from somewhere, pressed it against her throat. She gasped and stopped struggling.
"That's better," he said. "Now just behave."
Lightning lit the alley with impossible brightness, and Danika saw. Saw Colin look away from her as his left hand ripped at her tight skirt, trying to push it higher. Saw the grip on his knife slacken, just for a moment, distracted. She saw, and her rage recognized opportunity and freedom. As the thunder followed the lightning, she wrenched the weapon out of his hand. The blade sliced her hand where she gripped half on the handle, half on the blade. She didn't care, didn't feel anything but the pulse pounding in her throat and chest as she twisted the angle of the knife and rammed it upwards into his throat.
He reared back, choking, making noises like someone gargling with acid. Danika sat up and shoved him off of her. His hands clawed futilely for the knife, and, as he fell backwards, she screamed wordlessly in triumph.
The rumbles of the last thunder clap faded away, the clouds opened, and rain poured down.
Danika climbed to her feet, stood over Colin's body, watching as his limbs relaxed. The rain pelted down, dimpling his clothes, splattering the blood running from his throat. She spread her arms wide and looked up, let the rain hit her face. The water soaked through her clothes, dripped along her hairline and neck down her back. Cool, refreshing, the breeze of it relieving the heat and humidity of the city's night.
She swayed dizzily, the power of her actions singing through her veins. She had destroyed the evil that had tried to hurt her. She searched her soul for her conscience, and found it soaring with her. She was Danika Wilden, and she had delivered justice. Her conscience screamed to right wrongs. She would become a beacon to those who sought justice but were thwarted by the treachery of others. She would show them the way, show them how to keep from being trampled by those who wanted to use them.
Then she looked down, at the body lying before her in the narrow alley. His eyes were open, the mouth agape and slack. He seemed smaller, lying imperfectly within the tailored clothes her money had bought for him. The rain seemed to press him into the dirty asphalt.
Her shoulders slumped, the rage draining away.
He was not a monster, not evil, just a crumpled lifeless body soaking in the rain.
Danika remembered what it had felt like as a child when she had broken her mother's entire vase collection. Destroying things so her mother would have no excuse not to see Danika herself, not the thousand things her mother found more important. Evil deeds born of the best ideals were evil still. She had killed a man. Nothing could undo that action.
She stumbled away from the body, back to the entrance of the alley. She looked up into the rain and saw a woman, leaning over a balcony high above, her form glowing a beautiful unblemished blue against the storm clouds. Danika felt tears blur her vision, and she saw... saw beyond the city to a lush field of ankle-deep grass, a stream burbling to the right between curving banks. She saw a brilliant nighttime sky, glittering with stars so abundant it didn't seem real. She saw openness and beauty and a promise of something better if she followed the right path.
Danika blinked away her tears and realized the myriad stars she thought she had seen were only lights reflected off buildings. The city was unchanged, and the result of her evil deed lay waiting for her confession in the alley behind her. But the woman above seemed to glow brighter and brighter, a north star to guide Danika out of the morass she found herself in, and Danika knew she would follow wherever it led.
***
Nora stepped away from the balcony railing and shuddered, hugging herself. Tears ran freely, mingling with the rain washing over her, but she did not know whether they were of sadness or frustration or even joy.
She was the needle of a compass. She could only point north and hope it was enough.
The End
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