SOMETHING WICKED
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​​A gloved hand lays tarot cards out on a table.
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Placed neatly beside other esoteric and arcane objects, the cards are telling a story. A death, unforeseen. A boy left to rot.
Daedalus Grim, The Ghostfinder, is reading the tarot with quiet determination. His hands hold a set of dice, each side engraved with letters of the alphabet. A small radio is blabbering static nonsense from an attachment on his chest; a leather harness, nestled between his white, button down shirt and a tattered victorian overcoat.
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Grim is growing frustrated, he has been sat at the table for hours now, trying to discern something of importance from the seemingly
random smattering of occult apparatus before him. He reaches up to adjust his hat by the brim, gently raising it a half inch further from his furrowed brow.
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The quiet hum of the ships engines repeat, a soothing constant in the back of his mind. The Irridescent has been sailing between the stars for what seems like a thousand years now, its hard to quantify time when you aren't held to it's standards.
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Daedalus Grim is untethered, unbound from both time and space, he exists inbetween spaces, having been reborn after his own death many years before. For him, before is the same as after, and all occurs at once. Time and space lose their meaning, and so do you. This is what Daedalus seeks to find; others like him.
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The radio begins to buzz aggressively, and a womans voice pierces the static.
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"Oh love, you're still trying?"
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The voice is the singsong cockney cadence of a younger lady, higher pitched and very slightly more grating than usual.
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"Don't you start." Grim retorts.
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"I ain't startin' love, i never stopped. Anyway, you haven't even thrown the dice yet. That's my favourite part!"
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Grim exhales, he's tired in more ways than one, but the woman is correct. He's been holding on to the dice, using them as he was taught by the old mystic he purchased them from.
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"You hold them tight, and you will your energy into the dice. Feel yourself give to them, hold your question in your mind, and then release."
The dice clatter onto the table before him, disrupting the tarot where they lay. A single die rolls to the far end of the table, coming to a stop on the "NO" of an ancient looking ouija board. Grim reaches to collect it, and the radio static bursts again.
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"I bloody love that noise." She squeals with delight. "What do they say?" The woman asks, her singsong voice once more whirling through the white noise.
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Grim pulls the dice together, cautiously keeping their faces the correct side up, exactly as they landed. He brings them towards him, shoving the tarot cards to the side.
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"Well!?" The woman grows impatient, Grim also. "Mrs. Lovett, a moment of quiet, please."
Daedalus Grim stares at the dice, searching for a name. The boy, as spoken by the cards, is the object of Grims fascination. He's out there, somewhere.
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There, in the middle of the mass of dice in front of him, a single word. "Elo."
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"What does it say, Mr Todd?" The womans voice is subdued now, but she persists.
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"That name doesn't belong to me." Grim speaks quietly, sternly.
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"I'm sorry Mr. Grim, Sometimes i just forget. It's most peculiar being on the other side of your dealings like this, the mind seems to wander about a bit, like everythings out of fo-."
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Grim reaches up to the radio and switches it off, interrupting Lovetts last sentence. He gathers the dice and the cards, and folds the board.
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Beneath the table lies a leather bag, worn around the corners and decorated with brass trim. He places his collection of strange things inside it, and closes the clasp. A pair of initials stitched boldly into the leather have been scratched through with a sharp implement, but they can still just barely be made out.
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S.T.
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Daedalus Grim picks up the bag, stands from the table, and works his way through the darkened metallic corridors of The Irridescent.
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"Swerves, set coordinates to 17.3.55.19.N. Realspace travel only, we've got time."
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The ships A.I listens, and begins to accelerate.
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"Coordinates locked, estimated time of arrival, 73 years."
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Grim smiles.
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"As i said, Mr Swerves. We've got time. All of it."
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Grim sits in his chair and stares out at the streaming, neon stars that streak past the reinforced glass windows.
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"All ends in violence."
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