And Death Shall Have No Dominion

And Death Shall Have No Dominion is the twenty third chapter in the Wombles Eight.

Tara was just about to unlock her apartment door when a voice said behind her, “You need to get back on the inside with Katy.”

Tara whirled around to look at the woman who’d brought her back to life. There was a faint click as her key moved out of the lock, but she at least managed to keep it in her hand. “I was thinking of finding an alternative way instead.” She said.

“Were you?” asked the woman with a faint smile. “And what was that?”

“I hadn’t come up with anything yet.” Tara admitted. “But do remember, I’m not only doing this because you told me to. I chose light. And yet you still seem so unfairly doubtful about me.”

As she spoke, her tone gradually grew more tense until she was outright snapping at the woman. She cringed as she realized this. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to get so annoyed. But really, Inlustris, Katy’s not really the forgiving type. And I don’t think I could possibly convince such a vain woman that she’s got the wrong person.”

“But what if,” said Inlustris, smile broadening. “There really was another traitor? Someone who has also been a traitor from the very beginning? Someone who never wanted Katy to dominate the multiverse…who simply wanted to have a little fun…but never intended Katy’s elaborate end goal to succeed? What if,” Inlustris continued softly. “You could convince Katy that the traitor rumour was always because of that someone?”

Tara shook her head in confusion. “But that someone doesn’t exist.” She countered.

“Yes,” said Inlustris in a breath. “She does.” She twirled some strands of white hair in her fingers and said softly, “Selina Kyle.”

Tara chewed on her lip as she thought for a moment then said, “Even if it is true, she’ll never buy into it. That’s the name I gave her just before she tried to kill me. She seemed pretty adamant that Selina could never possibly betray her.”

“At least think on it.” Said Inlustris and disappeared in a puff of yellow glitter. Tara quickly turned around and got straight into her apartment. She began furiously sorting through the many papers on her coffee table, muttering to herself as she went.

“Tell her it’s Selina Kyle.” She muttered. “Exactly what I told her last time. Oh, come on, the woman’s never going to fall for that. I have to find another way. There has to be one. What the –“ she said as her hand touched something that definitely wasn’t paper. “Oh.” She said as she moved some things and discovered it to be her TV control. She switched her TV onto a random radio station and then continued sorting.

Meanwhile, Katrina had now made it to HQ and was discussing the reappearance of Esmerelda Summers with the person who’d called her, called Bridge.

“Any idea what she actually wants?” asked Katrina, fiddling absentmindedly with her curly gold-blonde high ponytail.

“We suspect she wishes either vengeance on you or intends to betray Katy and, how should we put it, usurp her? Likely both.” answered Bridge with no sign of emotion. Katrina sometimes wondered if the woman even had any emotion.

“And what do you want me to do?” asked Katrina, frowning a little. “I want you to stay hidden at a place of your choosing. Summers is most likely coming after you, and you’ve already failed to kill her once. It would be a bad representation of The Spiders if we let you back in the field with her.”

“But that’s ridiculous!” burst out Katrina, standing up and bracing her hands on the table. “I have the most experience with Esmerelda, and I’m certainly not just some helpless little lady who has to hide from anyone! I should –“

“Sit down.” Commanded Bridge. Katrina just huffed in disbelief, then continued ranting on.

“I should be the one to stop Esmerelda Summers. If they want me, they can have me and all that. You called me in just to say I have to hide? I’m not-“

“Purdey.” Hissed Bridge. “Either sit down, or just leave and do as you’re told.”

Katrina promptly left and climbed right onto her motorbike. She didn’t do as she was told, however. Instead, she simply adjusted her metallic-blue hair bobble and went round deliberately going to lots of places where she could very easily be spotted. Fortunately, Esmerelda must’ve been busy because she didn’t show up at any of them. She was also fortunate that Bridge was definitely very busy and therefore didn’t find her out.

Back at her apartment, Tara finally gave up on sorting through her papers and decided she would try to get back in with Katy. She wasn’t sure if she’d use the suggested method, but she’d do something about it at least. She turned the volume on the radio up to the point that it still sounded like music but the whole street should be able to hear it then headed out the door, leaving it unlocked. Then she thought of something and rushed back inside to mess up all her papers. She had another thought and picked up one of her crystal-studded guns. She shot herself in the neck and walked back out the door, dripping blood on the floor as she went, then placed a hand across the wound and said, “Tara Keel’s neck is uninjured.” It instantly disappeared. Tara left, still leaving the door unlocked.

Just because Katy had to believe she was a loyal ally, it didn’t mean everyone else did. This should help her to give an excuse without necessarily suggesting that she was plotting to sabotage anything.

After all, Katy should, logically, believe that a beaten-up, kidnapped blackmail victim would have to be seriously suicidal to cross her. And it should clear up with Katrina that she hadn’t been lying during their brief conversation. Hopefully.

Tara began to walk quickly through the street with colourful leaves crunching beneath her chunky-heeled, gold-buckled leather boots. She then decided to take a shortcut to Katy’s mansion through some woodlands. She knew that both woodlands and alternative routes were generally a bad idea, but honestly – how much could really happen to her? She was hardly going to die. If anything occurred here, it would just be a delay. Like coming up behind a slow person on a narrow path.

Tara jumped as she caught a glimpse of human-seeming movement amongst the trees. Pull yourself together, Keel, she thought to herself. Even if there is an adversary, you’ll be fine anyway.

Although there was the matter of if they made it even more of a delay by attacking someone who actually was vulnerable. Tara was just about to continue calmly on when she caught that glimpse again. She pulled off her leather jacket to reveal two folded white angel-feather wings poking out of carefully crafted holes in the back of her cosy black T-Shirt. She spread them out to reveal the sheer size of them.

“Who’s there?” she called out. No answer. She sighed in relief and folded her wings and slung her leather jacket back on, but without doing it up. She got about seven lengthened steps further when the movement came again – and this time a person appeared in front of her. Tara blinked, then blinked again, then a third time…and eventually decided that she wasn’t hallucinating. Standing in front of her was a very disoriented-looking, very bloodied-up Dr Martin King with both hands held over his chest so that he wasn’t really balancing very well. So if she wasn’t dreaming and Dr King really had been brought back to life, it seemed like it might’ve been an alternative method to either the immortality devices or the whole magical thing.

Tara chewed anxiously on her lip as she tried to decide what to do. She ought to carry on heading to Katy, as the quicker she got there, the more convincing it would seem but…well, it would be way more than cruel to just leave him like this. He’d likely die – again.

She’d have to temporarily ditch her original plans, she decided. It was too risky to take Dr King back to her own apartment, so…she’d use the one that used to belong to Venus, which still hadn’t been put up for sale for whatever bizarre reasons. She wished, as she flew Dr King over there with her jacket now left inconveniently on the woodland’s ground, that the wound wasn’t too deep for her to magic away with simple words. But she was going to have to brew a potion for this.

Fortunately, Tara and Dr King reached the apartment in about one minute flat and the door had been knocked off its hinges, undoubtedly from an encounter with some insane rival villain. Tara laid Dr King carefully down on the not-broken half of Venus’s red-and-green-striped sofa with shades that uncannily managed to precisely match the jewels on an immortality device. Then she set herself about finding potion ingredients. Luckily, Venus’s apartment was so ridiculous that it had every one of them right there in the cupboard. Some of its ridiculousness was quite unpleasant as there were quite a few rather creepy spiders crawling about – it was near-impossible to walk along the blood-smeared bare floorboards without crushing a handful of them and getting them on the soles of your shoes. She’d have to magic that mess away once she was done. She was likely going to throw up if she had it there for too long.

If that was actually still possible, anyway. After all, she seemed to have been eating quite a bit without putting any weight on since this whole guardian angel thing. Perhaps it had its other gifts too. As she finished putting all her potion ingredients in a bowl (having followed a recipe in a book which was about thrice the size of the one she’d looked up Dr Jaeger’s address in), she whispered, “Integrum potio.”

The ingredients instantly mixed and cooked. Tara sighed to herself and muttered, “Gosh, I hope this stuff actually works.”

Katrina was at a large outdoor market, but not buying anything. She’d wandered around in circles by this point, as she had seen something that everybody else was too distracted to notice. To be specific, she’d seen a barefoot woman with loose curly-ish bright-gold hair and grey-blue eyes in a pastel-blue soft boilersuit with white tie-dye on the lower areas, killing the person who’d been threatening them, using an innocent-seeming penknife to inflict that death. It had been quite a gory mess, so full of already-darkened blood, but it had been almost out of sight, causing most to be oblivious.

But not Katrina. Never Katrina.

She hadn’t worked out what to do as the woman had left, well, quickly. It had looked unnervingly like she’d simply begun running atop the Autumn breeze. But that was impossible, Katrina assured herself. Utterly impossible. Because if a mad killer was on the loose who could do that…she gulped as she tried to stop herself from imagining it.

The body would likely still be there, she realized. She could go over and look, but what use would that be? From how that fight had looked even from here, it would likely just make her sick. Logically speaking, she should head to HQ and tell Bridge, but…she wasn’t entirely in the mood, given their last conversation. She seemed to be left with only one option – go home.