Author: Crimson Vampire Goddess
Rating: R to NC-17
Disclaimer: I, Crimson Vampire Goddess, being of unsound mind and a body of no-one's fricking business, hereby declare that though I play with the story and the characters they, unfortunately, in no way belong to me.

Fred had only been walking for about fifteen minutes when she walked down the deserted ally way. She liked the quiet reprieve it gave her from the loud, groping drunks she encountered on the main streets, even if it only lasted the short distance from one end to the other. She had barely walked half way when someone grabbed her from behind and pulled her into a dark alcove. She barely had time to register what was happening for as soon as she was pulled back out of site of any one passing by, searing pain shot through her belly. The cold metal of the knife was covered with blood when her attacker withdrew it from her abdomen, and brought it up to strike again and again and again.

Tara Maclay lay on her side in a low red cot, breathing a few huffs from a long straight pipe, one end resting near a candle on the low table next to the cot the other at her lips. After a few more huffs she handed the pipe to a young boy who took the pipe and walked to another cot. She turned to lay on her back as she started to feel the effects of the herbs. She stared at the ceiling not really seeing it but rather visions from somewhere deep inside her own mind.

*Flash*
Everything was red, pulsating like a heart, it shifted into a picture which was in an eerie green glow it was a cobble stone street passing quickly beneath her then there were rats on the street and then somebody laying on the side of the road; she heard a church bell ringing in the distance and saw more people laying in the street
*End Flash*

*Flash*
She came to a window and a tall lanky man in a bowler hat opened the curtains and looked at her
*End Flash*

*Flash*
A stone wall with ‘Juwes' written on it in white chalk and stained with blood that dripped down from it, she then heard a voice saying "Mostly Jew's live here."
*End Flash*

*Flash*
She saw a window with a middle age woman looking out at her.
*End Flash*

*Flash*
Down an ally where a prostitute is having sex with a man against a wall as other people walk by like they're not even there.
*End Flash*

*Flash*
Another street and some homeless covered in rags walked by.
*End Flash*

*Flash*
A horribly disfigured man standing in the middle of the street.
*End Flash*

*Flash*
Walking down a deserted ally.
*End Flash*

*Flash*
White gloved hands taking a large knife out of a portable surgical kit
*End Flash*

*Flash*
Someone slicing open a woman's dress
*End Flash*

*Flash*
A man in a top hat and cloak stabbing a figure lying in front of him
*End Flash*

*Flash*
White gloves placing the dress back over the mutilated figure.
*End Flash*

*Flash*
Blood seeping through the material of the dress.
*End Flash*

*Flash*
A dead woman's face; her sightless eyes staring up into the sky.
*End Flash*

*Flash*
The dead woman lying on the street.
*End Flash*

*Flash*
The white gloved hands washing the blood off in a pool of water and a voice asking "can I get you something, inspector?"
*End Flash*

One by one the images flashed before her eyes like a gruesome dream. She had always been able to go into these trances ever since she was a small child. The "visions" as her mother had called them had always frightened her, so much so she would refuse to go to sleep at night. Her mother was the only one who knew how to sooth her after the visions. Every night for years her mother would come running into her room to comfort her but when she turned twelve her mother died and she was left alone with the burden of having the horrible images in her mind. The only way she coped with them was to think of her mother after the visions had ceased. It was as she was thinking about her mother and calming herself when a large man burst through the doors of the establishment and made a B-line to her cot followed closely by two cops. Looking down at the woman in the cot the man sighed and shook his head.

"Get up." He said. When he received no response he tried again.

"Get..." *slap* "Up." He repeated impatiently. The sting from the slap rousing her, the image of her mother faded into that of the large man standing at the side of her cot.

"Hello, Godley." She said recognizing the man. Sergeant Peter Godley was a tall round man with short brown hair and kind brown eyes that looked down at the young woman in the cot as he held out his hand to her. Taking his proffered hand, Tara was pulled to her feet and led out of the establishment in a daze.

Tara dunked her face in a bowl of cool water slowly coming out of her daze. Lifting her face from the bowl her long blond hair fell in a wet curtain over her face.

"Sergeant." She said as she tucked the wet locks back behind her ears. Sergeant Godley threw her a towel to dry off with from where he stood behind her still flanked by the two beat cops.

"It's night." She observed from a window that the table she was seated at faced.

"Well spotted, Inspector Maclay, indeed it is night. The genius has returned to us." Sergeant Godley said sarcastically as he smoked his cigarette.

"Thank you gentlemen, and remember if you ever wish to escape the dreary confines of your present duties: this never happened." Godley said turning to face the beat cops. He waited for them to nod their understanding before dismissing them and turning his attention back to Tara.

"Have I lost a day?" Tara asked around a cigarette as she lit a match.

"No, inspector, indeed it's only four hours since you left here." Godley replied watching her light her cigarette.

"Oh, deepest apologies for the umm... rude awakening." He added.

"I suspect you enjoyed that." Tara said throwing the matchbook on the table and leaning back into the chair.

""I must be cruel only to be kind" as the poet said. Although I would happily wallop you every time you chased the dragon." Godley replied a hit of a smile playing on his face. Tara reached across the table and grabbed a small bottle of liquor.

"Well I had a sneaking suspicion you might interrupt." Tara said before taking a swig from the bottle.

"You've seen something." Godley said his tone and features turning dead serious. Tara nodded as she stopped drinking. Sighing she had a far off look in her eyes for a moment and then looked back at Godley before replying.

"A red petticoat saturated with blood."

"You know they used to burn people like you alive." Godley said seriously.

"Some time this evening a bangtail was murdered in George Yard." He said.

"That doesn't sound much out of the ordinary." Tara said screwing the cap back on the bottle. Godley shook his head.

"It was the way she was done, inspector. It was the way the bangtail was done that calls out for a person of your talents." He replied meeting Tara's eyes.

The morgue was quiet for the most part; rows of tables most occupied by a body covered with a white sheet or a body being scrubbed and prepared for burial. There was one that was easily spotted for the sheet was no longer white, but stained red from blood. It was to this table that the coroner led Tara and Godley.

"Her name was Winifred Burkle. I don't know what sort of name "Burkle" is; it sounds foreign to me." Said the coroner; pulling the sheet off of the body and throwing it on the empty table next to them.

"This is not who I saw." Tara said looking down at the woman's face which was staring unseeing at the ceiling locked in an expression of terror.

"Not the woman of your dreams?" Godley asked. Tara nodded.

"You sure?" He said. She nodded again and took a swig from the small bottle which she'd stowed in her pocket.

"Show her." Godley said turning to the coroner.

"You show her! Why do I have to be exposed to this degradation over and over again? I've looked at the mess twice!" The man nearly shouted throwing the small towel he'd been using to wipe the blood from his hands on the table and walking away. Godley cleared his throat as he reached down and pulled the lower part of her blood soaked dress up.

"Before he cut her throat he removed her livelihood as a keepsake."