The Pixie's Apparitions

I stood now upon a high, tiled roof, the lucid night air of the Makai a stark contrast to the dusty confines of the aerie below. During my strange ordeal, the murky orange skies had given way to a deep gradient of purple and indigo. From a pouch within my coat came a muffled and furious buzzing, a constant reminder of the living witness I now possessed. The path of the detective, the woman I had been, would be to halt here and begin an interrogation.

But there was another trail, one far more potent and alluring. The taste of the ghost-blood still lingered on my tongue—a crisp, electric tang of chlorine and sorrow. And now, to my astonishment, I could smell it. It was not a scent for a human nose, but my new oupire perceptions. A shimmering, blue-black suture stitching the night, marking the phantoms' flight with a perfume that set my fangs to throbbing. fangs ache.

The choice was no choice at all. With the pixie's muffled protests a forgotten annoyance against my ribs, I turned my face to the unseen trail and began to move, my body once more a thing of wisping, fluid grace. The detective I had been was a ghost herself now, a fading memory; in her place was a huntress, drawn by the scent of a strange and terrible ichor, and for the first time since arriving in this terrible, beautiful world, I felt truly and terrifyingly alive.

The rooftops were my new domain. Guided by the alluring, blue-black scent of the banshee's ecto-blood, I moved across them as a queen surveying her realm. Each leap was a silent, soaring arc through the twilight; each landing was a whisper of sound. It was a strange and terrible promenade, my body a vessel for some predatory grace that no longer felt my own, crossing the chasms between buildings with an effortless precision that was both exhilarating and deeply unnerving. The scent grew more potent, a resonant note of promise in the thin night air. And then I beheld them

The scent grew more potent, a resonant note of a siren’s promise in the thin, aglid night air. And then I beheld them—no longer a fearsome congress, but a tattered and bereft procession of spirits. They drifted wearily between the great, dark edifices, their forms flickering, the Violin Banshee leaning heavily upon the warrior-phantom, her wounded arm weeping the very essence that drew me onward.

They led my pursuit away from the lilac stones and obsidian spires of the city proper, and into a district of an altogether different and more brutal constitution. Here, the architecture was a great and terrible jungle wrought not of wood and leaf, but of iron and steel. Vast, angular structures clawed at the darkened heavens, interconnected by a labyrinth of massive pipes and high, skeletal catwalks. The entire district was illuminated by a phosphorescent, chemical blue light that bled upward from the great metallic chasms below.

The weary phantoms drifted down, their forms like pale moths descending into the maw of some great and terrible machine. They disappeared into the shadows of the pipes below. I paused at the edge of the rooftop, overlooking this strange, new precipice, the muffled buzzing of the pixie in my pouch a small, angry secret. The hunt was leading me deeper into the city's bowels, and I, in turn, was descending deeper into my own new and monstrous self.

There was no need to descend as a mortal might, seeking stairs or ladders. I stood at the saddle of the iron jungle, the alluring scent of my quarry rising from the metallic chasm below, and simply… fell.

I did not plummet. I dove, my body twisting in a tight, controlled spiral, the noir fabric of my jacket flaring around me like the petals of some dark, night-blooming flower. I was a miniature cyclone of focused intent, a living drill bit of dark grace descending into the heart of the grotesque machine.

I landed before them on a wide, iron catwalk with a soft thud that was impossibly quiet for such a fall. The weary procession of spirits stopped dead, their apparitional forms a flickering, petulant convulsive. I rose slowly from my crouch, my head cocked to one side, a gesture of idle curiosity. Deliberately, I licked my lips, the phantom taste of the ghost-blood a delightful memory on my tongue.

A collective shriek of pure, unadulterated terror rent through the metallic ambiance. The poltergiests recoiled, their countenances collapsing into expressions of horrified disbelief.

A wicked, beautiful smile—a smile I had never felt before, full of teeth and a terrible, joyous hunger—danced upon my lips. I steadied myself, my body coiling like a panther's, a vessel of pure, kinetic intent, poised to spring forth and at last conclude the chase.

At the very instant I meant to spring, a blinding ball of white-gold light erupted above the walkway, banishing the narcotic blue gloom. It was a detonation of pure, silent beauty, and it cast everything in the warm, relentless radiance of a miniature sun. The spectacle of it rooted me to the spot where I stood.

As my eyes adjusted, the light coalesced. Floating serenely in the air was the Lady Seraphina, her great feathered wings spread wide, and her expression one of mild disappointment, as if she had arrived to interrupt a rather unseemly brawl. Hovering unsteadily beside her, borne aloft by the sheer force of the angel's effulgent aura, were Xiao Ru and Ashley, their countenances were a study in bewildered shock and the gut-wrenching throes of vertigo as they gazed down upon the strange and terrible phantasmagoria I had wrought below.

The golden light that held them aloft dissipated as swiftly as it had appeared. Ashley dropped from the air with a strangled yelp and landed face-first upon the iron catwalk with a resounding and most undignified clang. A low groan of pure misery followed from the heap of dark crimson leather on the floor.

Xiao Ru, however, landed with the light-footed poise of a fox. She paid no mind to Ashley's plight. Her large, amethyst eyes, wide with a distress that was utterly without artifice, were fixed upon me and me alone. She was at my side in an instant, her expression a portrait of sorrowful consternation, her lower lip trembling as if on the very verge of tears.

The sight of her raw, heartfelt panic was like a pail of ice water thrown upon the raging fire in my mind. The wicked smile fell from my lips, replaced by a sudden confusion. The predatory hunger, the joyous thrill of the hunt—it all vanished, leaving behind a fistular, aching shame. I felt the world, which had appeared as an illuminated manuscript of scent and impulse, snap back into its familiar reality.

"Mei-Ling!" she cried, her voice thick with unshed tears. "We could not find you! I was so worried! What were you doing? What... what happened to you?" Her gaze flitted from my face to the terrified ghosts cowering against the far wall, and then to the furious, buzzing pouch in my jacket, her expression of worry deepening into one of puzzlement.

Her genuine distress was a grounding force, an anchor in the storm of my newfound monstrosity. I let out a long, slow sigh, and a faint, weary smile touched my lips. I reached out and patted her gently on the head, a gesture I hoped was reassuring. Instead of pulling away, Xiao Ru seemed to melt under the touch—her furry ears flattening. She let out a soft, relieved sound, almost a purr, and leaned into my hand, her own worry momentarily soothed by the simple, familiar action. Her reaction, so full of innocent trust, further solidified my resolve to regain my own composure.

"In my world," I began, my voice softer now, more my own, "I was a detective."

At this, I saw the angel Seraphina, who had been observing the cowering phantoms with a placid expression, give a slight, almost imperceptible turn of her head—her now silver eyes, though I could have sworn them green—glancing at me with a new and calculating interest before returning to the ghosts.

"When a crime is committed," I continued, my gaze fixed on Xiao Ru, "it is my instinct to pursue the culprits. I am afraid... something else, some new and unwelcome instinct, took hold of me during the chase."

"'Something else,'" Ashley grumbled from the floor. She pushed herself up from the iron grating, dusting off her new, long, leather-like trench coat with a series of dull, angry pats. "That was your bloodlust, detective. The hunger. It comes with the territory." She paused, her brow furrowing in genuine curiosity. "Though I confess, I've never known the thirst to extend to... ectoplasm."

Her gaze shifted to the Violin Banshee, who was still cradling her arm. The wound from my bite was visible now, not a thing of torn flesh, but a dark, weeping patch of agitated shadow from which the blue-black essence still slowly dripped, staining the iron catwalk like an artist’s misplaced tear of ink.

I hummed low in my throat, a thoughtful sound, as I considered Ashley's words. "It was," I said, with a strange, reflective honesty that seemed to surprise even myself, "delicious."

Ashley’s perpetually bored expression faltered, replaced by one of genuine disturbance. Xiao Ru, who had been leaning into my hand, looked up at me, her quartz-like eyes holding an adorable, innocent confusion.

I ignored their reactions, my focus shifting back to the huddled phantoms. "But that brings us back to the beginning," I said, my voice hardening again. "Why did you have to steal the fabrics in the first place?"

The Violin Banshee merely scowled, her features twisting into an expression of pure, uncomprehending contempt, as if I had asked a shadow the reason for its darkness.

It was Seraphina who answered, her voice a placid, silver thread in the gelid air.

"She does not understand your question, detective," the angel hummed, her expression one of languid disinterest as she gazed at the iron rafters above. "Trade requires a currency of value."

She lowered her eyes—fiery eyes that seemed to betray her expression—to pass over the terrified spirits with a gaze of gross indifference.

"And a ghost," she stated, with the simple, final authority of a god stating a law of nature, "has nothing of interest to offer an angel."

The angel's pronouncement, delivered with the soft unarguable finality of a queen deciding where a single flower must be placed in a vase, was a piece of cosmic philosophy I could not begin to fathom. I did not pretend to try. The motives of gods and the currency of souls were not my concern.

Instead, as I rested my chin upon my palm, a more pressing and practical question asserted itself in my mind: by what means had she found us? To have been pursued with such effortless facility across the rooftops and into the very entrails of this metallic wilderness sent a faint, shivering whisper of intimidation through me.

It was a novel sensation, and a disquieting one. In my former life, as an officer of the law, those who stood above me in rank held a power of a different species to my own, and I had never been intimidated by it. But I was now a creature of a different sort, a participant in this grand and terrible game. I could at last dimly begin to apprehend the nature of the angel's power, for it was of the same kind that now grew within me. This intimidation was not that of an inferior before a superior, but that of a lesser predator recognizing, with a sudden and chilling certainty, a greater one. What truly then, were the inner machinations of an angel, and her celestial sphere?

I banished the unsettling thought from my mind and raised my gaze once more to the serene, floating form of the angel.

"Have you notified the local authorities?" I asked, my voice returning to its flat, professional tone. "These creatures are guilty of theft… and abandoning one of their own so callously—pathetically, even. They should be taken into custody and imprisoned... if such a thing is even possible here."

The angel Seraphina descended, her feet never quite touching the catwalk. She let out a long, slow sigh, a sound that seemed to hold an accumulated weariness of ages. She paid me and my question no mind whatsoever, as if I were a piece of the architecture. Her piercing, luminous gaze was locked upon the three cowering apparitions with an intensity that was terribly hypnotic.

"If not for my intervention," she said, her voice quiet yet carrying a strength that brooked no argument, "the creature you have wronged would not have been so… restrained. You would have experienced the second death."

As she spoke those last two words, her eyes flickered from the ghosts to me for a single, pregnant instant—a look that was both a warning and a statement of fact—before returning to them.

"And so," she continued, "you find yourselves doubly in my debt. Once for the goods you stole, and once for the souls you nearly lost."

Whatever pride and fury the Violin Banshee had possessed seemed to desert her in that instant. Her phantasmal form, already rent, contracted as if in agony. Her gaze fell to the iron walkway, and her entire being assumed the slumped posture of one who has been irrevocably vanquished.

"So we are," she breathed, her voice a meager, broken thing, the ghost of a whisper. Her will was thence broken.

Ere I could quite apprehend the nature of this exchange, Seraphina raised a single, delicate hand. A light bloomed from her palm—not the gentle aura from before, but a pure, white, all-consuming incandescence, like the very heart of a star. The power radiating from it was a palpable force; a terrible, boneless weakness assailed me, and my knees buckled. I closed my eyes against the impossible light, a strange and not-unpleasant warmth enveloping me as the world seemed to dissolve into pure sensation.

And then, as swiftly as it had begun, it was over.

I opened my eyes, and the cold, blue iron of the industrial district was gone. We stood once more amidst the impossible colours and serene quiet of the angel's boutique. Ashley was already on her hands and knees, groaning about the disorienting effects of "celestial travel."

Seraphina, who had not moved from her spot, now glided toward a bolt of cloth that shimmered like captured moonlight. With an effortless grace, she drew a length of the fabric free and floated to the Violin Banshee, winding the material around the phantom's wounded arm. The weeping wound seemed to calm and recede under the celestial touch.

"With your twofold debt," she announced, her voice soft but absolute, "you will remain here and serve as my helpers until it is settled. In exchange, you may haunt these premises." A faint, cryptic smile touched her lips. "And if your service is... exemplary, you may be permitted a taste of starlight."

The three poltergiests, who had clearly expected oblivion, stared at the angel with a a collected expression of pure, uncomprehending awe. It was a sentence not of punishment… but of a strange and unexpected mercy.

“And this decree extends to the feyborne who shelter against your breast,” she added, her gaze turning to me. A hot flush rose to my cheeks as a slight chirping vibrated against my chest, for in the madness of the moment I had entirely forgotten so crucial a detail.

I watched this strange and merciful judgment unfold, placing a single finger to my lips in quiet contemplation. I was satisfied, and yet… though the ravenous hunger that had gripped me was now quieted, in its place, the mind of the detective was rekindled by a new and far more compelling inquiry: What, I wondered, passed for law in a world where a victim might pass sentence upon her own assailants? Did such a thing as a constabulary even exist in the Makai, or was justice merely the province and privilege of the powerful?