Seven - Chief Of Sinners

If I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also.
 - Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde


They said it didn't have eyes. They said it had two black pits that stared back at you, holes that you could fall into forever.

They were wrong. It had eyes.

It had your eyes.

Or... eyes that might have been yours, if things had gone differently. Contented, satisfied eyes, with a certain air to them that suggested that you were being appraised. Eyes that belonged to a hunter. A hunter that was, for now, content to watch, and wait, and amuse itself with watching your struggles. But a hunter nonetheless.

Christie Waterman wasn't in the room in the Recovery House any more. She knew that without looking. She knew that, if she turned her head, she would see nothing but white bricks stretching away into infinity. The only thing that remained, the only thing that was real, was the mirror that had become a window.

She averted her eyes from the contents of the room that the thing on the other side was standing in. There were some things that she still didn't want to have to think about. She kept her eyes locked on the thing's features instead.

They were her features, almost. Less skeletal. Hair, short, but healthy and lustrous, fell to the soft shoulders. It could have been her. Almost. The posture was wrong, predatory and languid rather than small and hunched. It moved differently, like something wearing a skin that it wasn't used to, with joints in all the wrong places. And the fingers...

She looked back up to the face again. And then, a moment later, it spoke.

The Marionette comes at last.

She scowled, and her fingers tightened on the edges of the sink. "I'm not her," she rasped. The Worms writhed under her skin.

Oh? And why not? What did you think it would be like? She's nothing but pain, you know. Pain begets pain.

She gritted her teeth and hissed lowly between them. "I'm not her," she rasped again. "If I were her, I wouldn't be here."

Being her is the only way you could be here, answered the thing. Its voice was like a knife being sharpened across her brain stem. Something in her wanted to seize and cower in preparation for the attack. Something else rebelled.

It ignored her inner struggles. But you can tell yourself whatever you want, it said. Its hands came up, setting those fingers over the edge of the window where the mirror had been. She kept her gaze away from the fingertips. Motives are ephemeral things. Unimportant in the face of the act. The fact remains that you are here. And that means you're willing to do anything. 

She nodded. "I want to destroy them," she muttered. "To stop them. Forever."

There was a laugh, a soft, honeyed purr of sound. Then the sharp sensation of its speech returned. Whatever it is that you tell yourself, it said. There was a note of amusement in it. As I said. Ephemeral things. Why you want these things is not important. What you want is everything. And what you, my wonderful little ball of scars and pain, want... you want what you have always wanted. More suffering. Pain begets pain. But now... on a grander scale.

It leaned forward towards her. Its grin was too wide, impossibly wide, and the teeth never seemed to stop. You want to rip out all of our hearts and devour them. And so... you come... to me.

"You gave him power," she muttered. She lowered her gaze from the grin, spotted the fingers, and lifted it again, this time to the shoulders. "James. Even though you knew what he wanted to do with it. I want the same."

Oh, but you see, it whispered, its breath cold against her ear, I don't give power to anyone, any more than she gave hers to you.

She clenched her fingers still tighter against the sink. Something creaked. She didn't need to look to know that the Worms were surfacing again.

And nor, it said, sounding amused again, can it be forcibly stolen from me. You see... it isn't mine to give. It's yours. It's always been yours, as much as it was his. All you have to do is reach out and take it. 

She forced herself to raise her eyes to the face again, trying to will herself not to process what she was seeing. "Then how?"

Just... do, it answered simply. There was no magic in Jekyll's little potion, I can tell you that. But he found me just the same. 

She snorted, trying to show some measure of defiance in the face of the thing's leering grin. "So you want me to call you Hyde now?"

Why not? was the answer. It fits. Because, in the end... I am what you make of yourself.

"Yeah?" The look on her face was hard, determined. "Good. Because I want to be the thing that brings them to their goddamn knees."

No limits. No remorse. No mercy.

"Never," she snarled. "You're all going to pay."

Are we? the thing that called itself Hyde mused. Even myself? I wonder.

"Yeah," she snapped. "And you'll help me anyway, because that's what you do. That's how you work."

Of course it is, Hyde purred in her ear. One of those fingertips traced across the back of her white-knuckled right hand. She fought to suppress the shudder. You're right. Just like you've always been right about us. You'll have my power. As much as you're willing to take.

"Good."

The farther you go, the more I have to give.

"I'll take it all."

That's what I like to hear. She felt it laughing in the dark corners of her mind. You know, you really are a magnificent sight. A masterwork. So much hate and self-loathing and pain and anger and sorrow, forged and sharpened into one little woman. A weapon held to the throat of the world, and you can't stop yourself. I always did like you, Marionette.

She ignored it. Instead of answering, she demanded, "So what do I do to get access to your... power?"

The same thing you were already going to do. Find the Trumpeter. She has something you need.

Take it from her. Then take more. And more. And more, until there is nothing left to take.

And then never stop.

 The thing - the Rake - Hyde - was gone. She was back in the half-bath. She had never really left. But, in her head, the blued steel and icicles of her mind clicked and turned themselves around and around. The Worms boiled under her skin.

And, in the dim light, she grinned an entirely genuine grin at her face in the mirror.