Tag

Bella coughed quietly into her hand. I looked up from my writing, surprised to see the dark-haired woman. Rainwater dripped from her clothing and pooled on the floor. She’d been gone for a while. I had thought, perhaps, she was dead or had left the City for good. “Good evening, Praetor. Things have changed while I was away.”

“Bella,” I smiled in greeting. “Yes, much has changed.” I gestured broadly around the room, my hand sweeping the circle of the Library’s recent renovations.

I watched as she took a deep breath. “She is…gone. We are alone.” Bella lowered her eyes. “I felt her...pass.”

“It is almost as though she never was,” I sighed, closing my tablet and laying down my pen. “There is no mention of her. No discussion. Pontifex has disappeared. Cerdwin is gone. Artemisia. As though they’d never existed.”

“All the dancers, I should think,” Bella murmured. “I almost didn't come back here myself. I suspected I was thought dead.”

I nodded. “I had thought you so, Bella. I didn't think your body could endure.”

Bella turned, walking to the windows, and gazing out into the night rain. “I awoke…on a boat. I suppose she left me there. I was very ill.
Maybe she thought I was dead. Maybe not.” She paused, breathing deeply and wrapping her arms around her chest. “You feel the absence of her, too?”

“You know I swore i would send her back, Bella. But…I never thought she would really go.”

“Was it you who did?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “As did Pontifex. And Omega. Others.”

Bella sighed quietly. “I did not know. I only felt her leave.” Bella turned to me, eyes full of sadness mixed with anger. “Who was that wreck of a vampire that was just here?”

“Truthfully, I don’t know, Bella. She sought refuge from the Lady Omega, and appears impossibly to be pregnant. She was going on and on about refusing to feed, filled with self-loathing of her own nature before she became frightened and fled.”

“The little coward.” A bitter smile crossed Bella’s face. “Nareth wouldn't give it to me. I asked...I asked repeatedly. Now...I'm not even a doll anymore.”

I looked at the floor, unable to meet her eyes, remembering the taste of Nareth’s blood in my own mouth. “Do you feel the desire still?”

Bella gave a harsh laugh and looked at her hands. “Perhaps we shouldn't discuss my desires.” I watched settle into one of the armchairs near the window and reach into her pocket, drawing out a straight razor. “I know that it has changed me, but I wanted that change. I wanted much more.”

I focused on the razor, my face impassive. Bella caught my eye. “Oh, it's not her razor. I have no idea what became of that.” Bella folded the razor open, staring at the blade.

“I…Labyrinth gave it to me,” I began. “It was hungry…it called to me...Nareth’s sigil. I…gave it to Pontifex the night we sent her back, to open the way.”

Bella nodded. “So, he took it when he left?”

“Yes,” I replied. “He took it. And he cut all the bindings from his hands and his arms. When he freed himself of Omega, he left.” I frowned, remembering. “But he gave the blade to Denenthorn who tries to master it, thus it bends him. I have told him he is a fool if he thinks he can.”

“I see,” Bella laughed, folding the razor closed. “So, it's still here. She put a great deal of herself into that blade.”

“And what have you put into yours, Bella?”

“Do you ask me that as my Praetor? Or as...someone who has tasted Nareth?”

I sighed. “I ask as someone who has walked through the void.”

Bellatrix nodded slowly. “I try to follow her example. Part of me can't accept that we lost them both. A god and...Nareth....”

“The stars were not…right, Bella. Perhaps not for Aunt Beast, nor Nareth. And yet…” I trailed off, unable to find the words to express the greatness of the loss and the problem of the brown girl from the beach. I could feel Bella watching me closely.

“And yet?”

It was my turn to stare blankly through the rain drizzled glass. “I went walking by the sea the other night,” I began. “I stopped at a small fire to warm my hands. There were two people there. One, a blondish man in some sort of religious garb. He said he had a boat not far from the shore. The other was a small, dark girl, drenched and shivering. She said she had walked from the sea.”

Bella shifted in her chair. “Walked...from…the sea?”

I nodded. “She was disoriented…she kept asking when she would awaken from the dream.”

“What was her name, Praetor?” Bella began biting at her lower lip.

“Her name is Nareth,” I replied.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a green button and a small plastic card. “This button…she said is a state identity card.” I held it up between thumb and forefinger, rubbing it a little. It began to flash and Bella sat up straighter. “It didn't work at first. But I was able to start it functioning again…the sea water, you see.”

“Praetor,” Bella turned to me. “What year? Past, or future? Future, I'm guessing.”

“Future,” I replied. “Perhaps…future. At least that's what the identification card said.”

“Tag,” Bella murmured. “That's what Nareth called it. Playing tag.” Bella frowned slightly, looking at the objects in my hand. “Yes. She told me, when we were at sea with Abigail. For a while, she amused herself…by tracking herself down. Before she was Omega's Chylde...she did it...I can't recall…ten or twenty times, she said.”

Bella stopped talking and began staring at me as I pinched the button into temporary lifelessness. “She…met herself in time?” I asked with wonder, but there was no disbelief in my voice. I dropped the button and the card back in my pocket.

“Repeatedly,” Bella replied. “She thought it was a sort of game.
Tag.”

“A doppelganger game of chase,” I mused. “But to what end?”

Bella slumped in her chair. “She said it caused the...other hers…to become unstuck…unstuck in time. She just…liked the game.”

I nodded. “It was always the game for her, wasn't it?”

“Praetor,” Bella interrupted, “Are you telling me that one of them has come here?”

“Yes, Bella. I think…I think yes.”

Bella cursed silently under her breath. “Where is she?”

“She . . . I don't know,” I sighed. “I left her resting upstairs. She was tired. Grr fixed food for her, but she didn’t eat. I took her upstairs to the cot by the window where Aunt Beast often rested…but…she’s gone now.” I stared out the window, my jaw clenched.

“She left?” Bella asked, incredulous. “She was…allowed...to leave? Jesus...” Bella placed a hand on the pocket with the razor. “The machine...Nareth said...the machine functioned...to the favor of her,” Bella trailed off.

“The machine?” I wondered aloud.

“Well…she said it wasn't a real machine, only a metaphor.” Bella jammed her hand into her pocket. “The machine was here to cover her tracks. Whoever created her, created the machine. People tended…to look the other way.”

I held my face in my hands and began rubbing my temples. “Because people prefer not to see.”

“Something like that,” Bella nodded. “I never understood it very clearly. She just rambled...I listened. Sometimes I thought she was insane. Like…Azathoth.”

“What is she, Bella?” I asked. “What is at the core of her?”

“Nareth?” Bella laughed. “I was only her lover...her blood doll. I can tell you what she wanted me to believe. But...I know it's a lie. That she was...a sort of….” Bella stopped and looked at me evenly. “Let's say an archetype. She would have said that she was the archetypal murderer. But I know it's vastly more complicated than that. She had no intention of ever letting me see the whole.” Bella sighed. “I was only...well…her doll.

“But...think about this, Praetor...she once said...when I asked her about playing tag....She once said, ‘Back up copies,’ and I had no idea what she meant, not then. Do you see? I thought it was a joke.”

I smoothed my skirt, worrying a thread as though it would help me understand. “Apparently, Bella, it was not in the slightest a joke.”

“Praetor, what if...this woman you saw is here...to start it...again?"

“I don't know, Bella. She is human…or appears to be.”

“Does that matter?” Bella’s voice was rising. “I mean...she is Nareth. As much as Nareth was. Just...from another world line.” Bella shook her head.

“Worldline?” I asked.

“I should not even say these things,” Bella shrugged, then went on to explain. “Each part of the multiverse, she said, has its own worldline…and timeline, how things may progress. Each timeline is in constant flux, and holds infinite possibility.” Bella sighed. “I've never been much for physics...she talked about this stuff a lot.”

I nodded. “I suspected this to be a possibility.”

“But…what she said....” Bella trailed off, suddenly looking very tired. “Praetor...you are investigating this woman? The…new Nareth?”

“I sent out a request to the Institute,” I sighed. “But I have yet to stir the interest I had hoped.”

Bella took a deep breath. “I had not planned to stay here. I've even written out a letter of resignation, but...I could be of assistance. I know things....”

“Bella, you seem to be the only one who has a fuller understanding of the implications. All of them.”

“And if...if we could get her back, Praetor....” Bella began nodding to herself, her expression a little over eager. “I mean…if we could get Nareth back…we would, wouldn't we?”

“We would. I would. But there is one thing you should know, Bella. The night we sent Aunt Beast back…she left…another aspect of Nareth here.”

Bella looked at me, confused. “Excuse me?”

“I created a golem, Bella. One borne of iron. And it lives. It has…her memories…or at least some of them.”

Bella began nodding very slowly and laughing. “Fuck. Tag...another copy. Unless...Lorne released her soul?”

“Lorne…did not help, Bella.” He had promised to and yet when I called to Him, silence was my only reply.

Bella’s eyes widened. “Then...this golem...it can't truly be Nareth. It was…a trick…Labyrinth....” Bella smiled and covered her mouth.

“But, Bella,” I stammered, “It has . . . it thinks it is . . . Nareth. It went immediately to where she stored her clothing and dressed in Nareth's own clothes.”

“It would...yes,” Bella nodded. “Praetor...I need to rest, and see what I can remember...try to start putting this all together.”

“Yes…yes, alright, Bella,” I replied and watched as she headed up the stairs.

The Marketplace
Deadweight
Satyr