Madness At Noon {COMPLETED}

Something Wicked This Way Comes 6/10

Ahem.

I do apologize. That was not very lady-like behavior. I am afraid I just got a little excited there for a moment. Late Mr. Alexander Burcher's news just surprised me so much. My heart nearly stopped for the shock, and after that, I just wanted to kill everything and burn the world to the ground; nothing too serious.

Please excuse me.

I am much better now. My house is no longer on fire, the ridiculous Royal Guard who so stupidly entered my residence uninvited are no longer among the living, and I took a few days to recompose myself. All is as it should be.

Oh, and Cheshire is doing just fine, the little darling. He will have a brand new scar to add to his vast collection and now he avoids me as if I am carrying the Black Death, but he will get over it eventually.

Forgive and forget, that is my motto.

Either that or: seek vengeance whenever anyone gives you the slightest slight and leave a trail of mutilated bodies in your wake. Whichever one best suits your needs.

But still... I feel as if I must pay for overstepping my bounds. How about I tell a story to make it up to you? It goes something like this:

Many years ago...

I worked as a waitress for a very high-end restaurant called The Sea Pearl. I particularly enjoyed the work because after hours the owner let me debone and cut up the fish to prepare for the next day. Each night I took home a jar full of carefully cut out fish eyes and used them to decorate the ceiling of my apartment.

Then came the day when a patron by the name of Josh Croket asked me in no kind way to stop smiling because I reminded him of a great white shark hungry for a meal. Mr. Croket had, of course, been scuba diving on numerous occasions, being as ungodly rich as he was, and had seen actual great whites off the coast of New Zealand, so he knew what he was talking about. I was creepy, he said, and if I didn't have such a tight ass he would demand to have another waitress.

I just smiled, took his meal, and said nothing more of the subject that evening. After the restaurant closed for the night, I followed the man home and cracked in his skull with a wooden bat.

He woke up seven hours later strapped to a chair on the edge of a large tank inside the local aquarium. The blood dripping from his head had already attracted four of the seven great white sharks. They circled below, waiting.

"White death," I said, watching my reflection in the water. The ripples distorted the image, making the face unrecognizable. The color of my hair melded with the blood, creating a red splurge on the surface. "They call these creatures white death. As if death has a color..." I stifled a yawn. Mr. Croket was begging for his life or something, his voice rising to hysterics as I walked over and put my foot between his legs.

"God! Please! I'm sorry! I didn't mean- I'm so sorry! I'll do anything you want. Do you want money? I have money. I'll give you all the money I have. You'll never need another dime again. I swear to God I'll do anything. Just don't – God! – just don't-"

"Shut up."

His jaw snapped shut with an audible click.

Once upon a time men killed over the right to call themselves brave. The woman was the highest pedestal, the unreachable goddess who must be implored to love. Only blood could turn her gaze. "Here, fair lady! I have cut out the hearts of tyrants for you!" "Here, my heart's desire, I have slain a nation to win your affection!" "Here, beauty incarnate, I bring you the head of my previous love in hopes that you may take her place!"

It was so romantic.

Leaning down I peered into Mr. Croket's face. "You're not a very good charmer, are you?"

During those long ago years of my life, I knew if I found that perfect man, my boredom would cease. We would be together in our perfect lives. Like two embers struck against each other, we would watch the world burn as we picnicked atop the blazing rubble. He would take me out to all the fancy restaurants, shower me with freshly stolen diamonds, and at night our passions would merge and burn until death did us part.

Love, I had concluded, was the ultimate endeavor.

Mr. Croket's eyes were shaking in their sockets. His pupils were an ugly shade of mud. There was nothing remotely attractive about his man, not his mud eyes or his soiled pants or his tear-wet lips. "I-I-I-I-I could be."

My lips pursed. "No. You really couldn't." Inching closer, I said, "Tell me you love me."

Mr. Croket's face turned a neon shade of green. He kept looking from me to the tank to me again and back to the tank. As I leaned closer he leaned back, pushing against the grated floor with the tips of his toes. His mouth opened. "I... I..." The word formed on his lips, but in his desperation to move away from me, the man leaned back too far and the chair toppled into the tank. His scream was swallowed up by a gurgle and the sudden splashing of water as the sharks swarmed.

The end.

Now, children, what have we learned here today? Could the moral of the story be that Mistress Noon is a dangerous psychopath who should not, under any circumstances, be pissed off? Or could it be that the scumbags of the world really do deserve punishment, be it at the hands of our infamous heroes or at mine? Who, pray tell, is the hero of our story?

Who is the villain?

Tell me, my little pets, tell me what happens when someone very bad does a very stupid thing like challenging me? After all, bad people deserve bad things to happen to them, do they not?

I think... I think I will try my hand at playing the hero. After all, if the word of a Royal Guardsman is to be trusted, there is a murderer on the loose. Someone should bring that nasty, nasty, stupid human being to justice. Because all life is precious.

I did not tell Jack or Cheshire where I was going as I grabbed my cloak and a mystery novel for the road off a shelf in the half-burnt great hall of the ground floor. The boys were left to clean up the mess while I attended to some... business matters.

Mistress Noon was in the hunting business. 

I had a killer to catch.

And there was no God in existence that could save them from me.