URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2  –  CALL TO ARMS

Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain created and developed by Eidos and Crystal Dynamics.

I said I was thinking of it. Now, with Defiance under my belt, I'm actually going to try it. This story is the sequel to Urban Nosgothic, and will make a lot more sense if you've read the first one. However, I hope I'll be able to make it interesting enough to function on its own as well.  As the story begins, Rhi has just reached Avernus Cathedral with Raziel for the first time, and it is a cold day in February, 2004…

NB: if this doesn't work, or is in any small way tedious, tell me. I'll stop.

Casual kindness can be as vicious as cruelty, don't you feel that? I do. Everyone I meet these days is so kind, but so uncaring.

"How's your life going, Rhi?"

"Make a lot of money, Rhi?"

Sometimes I come home so tired I fall asleep on the sofa in front of the TV. Those are the good nights. Some nights I don't come home at all, and those are the nights that I lie awake in strange beds and cry and wonder…

Somehow I really thought my life was at its worst just over a year ago, but look how wrong a girl can be.

I did go to Wales after Gary…

…well, that's a good point, isn't it?

I can't say Gary died, exactly, although being dragged off to Nosgoth in the company of two immensely powerful vampires is practically a death sentence for a human in itself. I don't really know what happened to him. Anyhow, after Gary was gone, I did go to Wales, and stayed there for several happy months, living off fresh air and rice  with Carrie and Martine. The police stopped asking me questions after a few months. Gary's body is presumably lying cold and anaemic somewhere in Nosgoth. Or maybe it's cold and walking around snarling, who knows? Either way, Gary is no longer on earth, dead or undead. They have no hope of ever finding him.

I loved living in Wales. But Aberystwyth, beautiful though it is, is sadly lacking in work opportunities. Especially for a college drop-out like me whose work experience lends itself only to shelf-stacking and burger-flipping. Hell, the local McDonald's wouldn't accept me. Apparently I didn't show enough enthusiasm for scrubbing out deep-fat fryers at 2 a.m.

I think about turning that lone opportunity down a lot these days.  Usually after the light has finally been turned out and I can lie in the dark and nurse my regrets like children.

I finally ended up leaving my friends and moving to London. I was following the offer of office work, led by the lure of city money. Led by my greed, I guess, and look where it got me. I got a tiny flat in a huge, concrete horror of a residential block, in exactly the wrong part of London. The rent was all I could afford with the loan I'd been forced to get. I didn't have a lot to unpack. My TV, my futon, my PS2 and collection of games. A suitcase full of clothes and my one good interview suit. My bookshelves, from which little plastic Kain and Raziel stare down at me watchfully, protectively. Sometimes I can almost believe they're still here, still making sure I'm not screwing up by getting another abusive sod of a boyfriend. Sorry, guys…I just found another way to screw up…

I wore the suit to the job agency. It's an old suit, but my only good one. The skirt is a little too short, but I've got okay legs.  They nodded and smiled and wrote my name down, my pitiful credentials. They said they'd call.

Funny, but running around with vampires seems to have improved my sense of smell. I can smell bullshit at twenty paces, these days.

There was no job. I walked home because I couldn't afford the Tube or taxi. I walked through the bad streets, in my short skirt. I called more agencies. They offered me work, but after a little calculation I worked out that my pay would just about cover my day-to-day commuting expenses, and do nothing for my loan repayments, credit cards, or overdraft. The same was true of taking government handouts. I just didn't qualify for enough. Now if I'd been a drug addict or a single mother, things might have been different…

And inevitably, after I'd gone through this pointless job-seeking charade for the fourth week running, I was made an offer my debts could not refuse.

I guess it's not such a great sacrifice. It's not as if I was saving my virginity for Mr Right or anything. Mr Wrong already ruined that little girlish dream for me. At the moment, it's just another thing I have – maybe the last thing of value I have to give. Or in this case, to sell. I've already sold everything else. All except a couple of things…

This latest guy is a leaver, thank God. He's up and out of the bed bare seconds after we're finished.  The last one wanted to stay a few hours and play on my PS2. I told him it cost extra, and he slapped me and left. Good. That console is for me to play with.  How does he think I unwind after he's gone? I kick some vampire or sarafan ass, that's how.  That's what I kept, although in my desperation I sold my microwave and now have nothing to cook with at all except a toaster and a kettle. My one lifeline remains with me, because I can't bear to let it go. My TV, and my PS2. Five games. My very first client enabled me to buy a copy of Defiance, Kain and Raziel's latest outing (still no noticeable sign of Gary, although I I'm looking very hard at every walking corpse I encounter). It was my present to me, solace for the violated. I'm doing pretty well with it, I guess, and feeling more sympathetic towards Kain by the second.  

This one's married. Has to get back to the wife and kids. He glances at me as he puts the money on the nightstand.

"You okay, yeah? That's  what we agreed?"

That's my old enemy casual kindness again. You see, he doesn't really care about me, but it assuages his own feelings of guilt to ask. I nod. He's through the door without another glance back.

And, on cue, I burst into tears again.

Every damn time. You'd think, after all I've been through – Gary, Raziel, nearly being mauled to death by Kain – you'd think I'd be tougher than this.  I curl up around my pillow and sob dryly. I almost cried at the cash machine earlier today when it displayed: BALANCE – 0000.36 CR.

Weak. Weakness, weak sobbing. Stupid little weak helpless girl. Once a victim, always a victim. At an early age, someone must have tattooed "Victim" on my forehead in ink visible only to sadists.

I hear the door swing open again. Shouldn't have let go so soon. Mr Married must be back, drawn to the sound of my tears like a moth to the flame. I don't sit up. Maybe if I ignore him, he'll go away.  He'll be embarrassed anyway.

A hand caresses my curled, bare back. The fingers are thick, and the nails long and sharp. Not Mr Married, and certainly not embarrassed.  I yelp and my head snaps up to face the intruder.

My gaze travels up an arm the colour of new cornflowers, with corded lines of muscle as strong as spun steel. Three (fingers? Talons?) stroking my thin human skin gently, so gently. A powerful jaw, full dark lips currently thinned with unvoiced compassion. And yellow eyes, sharp, acid, almost glowing in the dark. Something is very wrong with my intruder;'s shoulders, because they seem huge and darkly hunched against the pale light of the door as it swings ajar.

My bite scars start to hum with pain and itch furiously. I clamp a hand to my neck, trembling and immobile.

"Poor child," Janos Audron says, and his voice is like the mellow, almost musical purr of a big cat, "poor child, what have they done to you?"

Casual kindness. Even the vampires have started doing it to me now.