Emmeline, the girl in the storm

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By night time the roads back into central London had been ploughed clear and were fenced high on either side with high mud-splattered walls of compacted white snow.
Emmeline and Charon were in a cab, headed for Soho as it turned carefully down each new white-walled road. Poppy and the two boys had stayed at Emmeline's house despite their protests. She knew Charon was right, they couldn't come, and they couldn't keep her safe. But they could keep her informed if anything happened at while she was gone, though she wasn't too happy about that either.

Charon did not do much to comfort her, he was the kind of person, or monster, who accepted things as they were.

Emmeline however, was not. When her teacher asked her in year four to write down on a piece of paper what she wanted to do when she grew up, she wrote 'Change the world'.

Strangely, she believed she had her father to thank for this intense belief and desire not to accept the status-quo. She wondered how Charon had missed that same lesson from him. Guessing it had something to do with living for thousands of years and seeing lots of miserable activities take place on the surface of the earth, and most likely in his own world too, she chose not to ask any questions.

In her jacket pocket there were two things. The little iron box, which she was trying not to think about. Every time she put her hand in her pocket she itched to play with the lock that held it shut. There was also the scrap of paper, the photo of her father. She pulled this out of her pocket now and without thinking twice, handed it to Charon to see what he thought. It did occur to her that he may never have seen a photo of his own father.

He looked at it once and frowned. Suddenly the scrap of photo combusted in his hands and burst into flame. The cab driver saw this happen through the rear vision mirror, but notably chose to say nothing.

"Hey, that wasn't yours to burn," Emmeline said, upset.

"I didn't mean to," he said, staring at the black ash left in the palm of his hand. He brushed it off quickly and looked away out the window. He didn't say anything further until they got out of the cab at Leicester Square.

When they arrived in front of the club with the neon lights flashing over the door, Emmeline hesitated. Now she knew why Charon had specifically wanted her to dress up, and why the ferryman had changed his own clothes via the aid of magic while they were in the cab on the way there.

At the tender age of twenty one, Emmeline had never been into a strip club. It wasn't actually something she had particularly envisaged doing at any age of her life. But here she was in black patent heels, a little black dress and mahogany red lipstick, hanging off the arm of a well dressed, albeit not-very-human young man.

"I am not—" Emmeline began.

Rather sharply, Charon told her to shut up as they approached the bouncer.

The heavy man looked Charon up and down, and then Emmeline too, "Twenty quid mate, and for your missus."

"Angula knows I am here." Charon replied in a soft voice.

The bouncer blinked and stepped aside without another word, and they crossed through the doorway into darkness.

As they walked down the dimly lit hall toward the distant, grinding sounds of music, Charon spoke, "I have to forewarn you, our kind do not adapt so well to your world, as you saw last night. Once here, most do not really understand how truly they are stuck, and when they finally do, they go a little bit—"

"Evil? Insane?"

Charon shrugged, and then nodded, "Amongst other things, yes."

At the end of the hall, another door was opened for them. The club was much what Emmeline would have expected, a lot of men, a lot of alcohol. There was a girl halfway up a pole in the centre of the room, and one lying across the bar with a row of shot glasses balanced down her midriff. There were other women in the room too, some dancing, some pouring drinks, some tucking notes into what little pieces of clothing they were wearing.