Chapter 4 #2
Hook walked past her without even looking at her, eyes locked on Peter Pan. “Shall we dispense with the pleasantries, old friend, and simply jump to the conclusion?”
Nervously, Peter took a step back—clearly afraid of Captain Hook in open combat. This wasn’t the cocky, laughing cartoon, always certain he’d get the one-up on his foe.
Hook leveled his rapier at Pan. “Stand and fight. Or, run. Like you always do.”
Peter flinched. “Because you don’t fight fair.”
Hook laughed, a sound that sent a shiver down her spine. “You accuse me of fighting with bad form? Pah! You merely wish to complain that I fight with this.” He lifted the hook. “Whose fault is it that I wield a blade with my off-hand these days, boy?”
Someone came crashing out of the overgrowth, looking like a baby deer who hadn’t figured out how to use their legs yet. She was wearing a blue cotton dress. Sasha knew her face on sight.
She’d have to. It was her own face too, after all. “Sid!” Her legs were moving before she realized she had even started running toward her sister.
“Sasha!” Sidney started running toward her in return.
Sasha almost collided with her in the middle of what had just been a bloodbath, ignoring the dead bodies and puddles of gore as she hugged her sister desperately.
Sidney was already weeping into her shoulder. “I’m so scared, I was so scared, I still am—I, oh god, Sash, this guy—your guy, we have to warn you—are you okay? Did he hurt you? What’s happening?” Sidney was babbling.
Not like Sasha could blame her. She felt exactly the same way. “I don’t know, I really don’t—” She clutched Sidney close, relief washing over her. Well, no. Relief was the wrong word. “I was really hoping none of this was real…”
Sidney sniffled and lifted her head, wiping her tears. “Ditto. Maybe it’s still drugs?”
“Maybe.” But she was very much starting to believe it wasn’t. “I—”
“You’re both ruining the sceeeene.” Hook whined through a long sigh. But it wasn’t with the voice he’d been using before. That was with Vile’s voice.
Oh. Now she was starting to get it.
“Let us go!” Turning, she kept her body between the Captain Hook she surmised was actually Vile, and her twin. “Why did you bring me here? Why did you drag her into this now?”
“First of all, I have nothing to do with your sister being here.” Captain Hook rolled his eyes.
His voice was still that of Vile’s, however.
His whole demeanor changed. Like an actor playing a role, the posture of Hook became more relaxed.
More debonair. More like Vile and less the pirate captain.
Sasha saw one of his eyes glow an eerie shade of purple.
“That’s a lie, and you know it.” Peter Pan was standing beside them, rapier still held high. His voice had now changed as well, though Sasha didn’t recognize it. She assumed it was now whoever Vile’s counterpart was. “You abducted Sasha first.”
Hook-Vile, or whatever he was, took a step forward. His shape shimmered, and like a mirage, the form of Captain Hook was gone, and the no less bizarre form of Vile remained. “That’s a technicality and you know it.”
And like a dream, the world around them fell away with it. Soon, they were standing in a library—the library Sasha had woken up in.
Sidney clung to her. Their clothes had changed. Sasha was no longer the pirate Mr. Smee, and Sidney was wearing what Sasha assumed her twin had been wearing before falling into the other book.
The man who had been Peter Pan was now who she assumed was Vile’s “brother.” And just like Sasha and Sidney, they were twins…kind of.
More like mirrored images of each other. Exact copies, but inverted. One light, one dark. One golden-yellow, one purple. One tanned, one pale. One good, one…evil.*
“Dang,” Sasha muttered, and lost the fight to not stare at Vile’s sunnier twin. She might not like to date, but that didn’t mean she didn’t appreciate a handsome man when she saw one. And the one she was looking at could stop traffic.
“Right?” Sidney muttered back. “Scenery’s nice.”
“Can you two focus for one moment?” Vile rolled his eyes as he stormed away from them. “We are all quite well aware that Virtue over here is the shining example of all things handsome and princely. It’s the whole damnable point of his existence!”
“He’s just jealous he’s the unlovable one.” Virtue smiled at them both with a sad, sympathetic air. “You have to be patient with him. Being the monster can be hard for him sometimes.”
Vile growled in abject rage. His form seemed to—there wasn’t a good word for it besides melt.
His humanity leaked away as his anger seemed to take over.
Darkness overcame half his body, as though drawn on by some invisible force.
It began to spread onto the world around him, up the bookshelves and onto the table.
Just like the tendrils that had come from the book.
“Do not speak of me as if I am some kind of child, you blundering half-wit.”
Sasha went rigid and clung to Sidney, feeling her twin do the same to her, as she watched dozens of inhuman, horrifying purple eyes blink open in the darkness that was once Vile’s human form.
“Brother. Stop scaring them.” Virtue moved to stand in front of them. He was protecting them. The Hero and the Villain.
The hero and the monster.
Of course she had been abducted by the villain. Of course, that was her luck.
Turning his back to them, Vile audibly cracked his neck. His form shrank, and once more resembled something human. Well, in as much as he could probably manage. It was still a little off in parts.
He turned to face them, smoothing his hands down over his coat.
“Hard not to scare them when that is the whole point of my existence. You have your role, I have mine.” Adjusting his tie, he let out a breath.
“But, yes. Let us start at the very beginning. Which is, as someone has said before, a very good place to start.”
Lifting his hand, he snapped his fingers.
* And always over the wrong parts of them, it seems. Graphic murder? Why, suitable for children’s fables. Graphic consensual sex? Out, you Whore of Babylon! -V
* I do so much love that word… -V