"I do not need to tell you how rare such a creature is. She is the opener of the way."<br/>"She is dangerous. We should have an end of this. You play with fire letting such a child live."<br/>"Think of the doors she can open for us. Vistas you can not even imagine."<br/>"I have thought on it. Have you?"<br/>"Reward is not without risk."<br/>"What if she opens up something we can't shut?"<br/>"... we all die. Reward is not without risk."<br/><br/>+++<br/><br/>The courier examined her case habitually, a nervous tick that was as consistent as it was unnecessary. Its cherry hued lacquer was polished with an obsessive compulsive zeal, reflecting the flickering lamplight in her cabin. The nighttime landscape of the French countryside passed leisurely by the window, the steady click-clack of the rails laying out an almost hypnotic rhythm.<br/><br/>The cabin was garishly decorated with satin drapery, presenting the illusion of finery. She had noticed that the drapery was actually in place to hide the gouges and carvings in the wall. Left by passengers past who had applied their peculiar wit to the polished oak with a knife point, unsurprisingly, they were mostly fart jokes. The French always did love their roman comedy and fart jokes.<br/><br/>She had read them all the first hour. The good ones she had read twice.<br/><br/>There was a strange odor in the cabin that she had tried unsuccessfully to recognize for the first five hours of the trip. Like the graffiti, the railway had tried to cover it up, rather than actually tending to the source. The pungent orange oil did little to mask it, instead just sickening the already queasy messenger. It was a very small and personal victory for the courier when she at last found the lunch pail left in the top luggage compartment. There was nothing so gratifying as solving a mystery. That out of the way, she stared blankly around the cabin, filled with a growing disappointment that her only source of entertainment had expired.<br/><br/>Five minutes passed before she checked the case again, running her fingers across the embossed masonic seal. Again, it was largely unnecessary for three very important reasons. The first being that it had been in her possession for the last fourteen hours. It had been her only companion in her private cabin. Depressingly it was as silent as she was.<br/><br/>Secondly, it was possessed of no lock, snaps, or even hinges. There was no complicated puzzle or sliding seams or in fact, any method or manner to opening it. But she always managed. That was her gift. She could open things. Locks, tumblers, combinations, door jams, sliding chains, mystic seals, hammer and nails, and bloated housewives in chairs. There was no means of impeding her if she wanted to open a door.<br/><br/>There were those who told her it was a rare and powerful gift. She knew a fellow Illuminati member who could make a person fall in love, empty their pockets, or die straight away with a single glance. It was apparently much more common to have such an evil eye, than to be an opener of the way. She didn't feel lucky. Particularly today, infirmity tearing through her body and the enemies of the Grand Architect hunting her.<br/><br/>The third reason she wasn't concerned was... less pressing to her than checking the case once again.<br/><br/>Predictably, some might say, it was still in her lap.<br/><br/>Her eyes opened wide at a sudden and unnatural growling sound from within the cabin. While her particularly lavish imagination entertained all manner of beasties for a paniced eternity, she sheepishly realized that she had not dined. It was easy to forget the mundane necessities of living at times like this.<br/><br/>She had been trying to keep a low profile, but she rationalized that dying of starvation was very much not low profile. Retrieving her bolder hat and parasol, she examined herself in the reflection of the viewing window. It was unseasonably hot in her room, but she had refused to remove her tweed coat. Parasol wrapped about her wrist, she grasped her case. Her knuckles were white beneath her gloves as she felt her guts twisting again. As she stood up, her contents shifted, making her queasy.<br/><br/>The air was thick and warm in her lungs, offering little comfort as she gasped. In the grip of her illness, she shuddered feebly, her forehead pressed against the door of her cabin. The pain faded by slow degrees, and she drew in a ragged breath to compose herself before opening the door. There was an almost oval burn in the wood where her forehead had rested. Ravenous despite her nausea, she lurched out of the cabin. It was delightfully cool in the passageway, somewhere in the mid seventies she guessed. Steam rose from her body briefly as she acclimated to the change in temperature.<br/><br/>She could make herself out in the looking glass, her veins standing out starkly on her pale skin, pure indigo lines crisscrossing beneath the flesh as the sickness shifted briefly once more. It seemed to settle at last, the color returning to her face slowly. As she walked down the corridor, the deadbolts and twist locks of the cabin doors serenaded her, clicking open and twisting as she passed.<br/><br/>It was late, but the meal car was still in the back end of its service hours. Food would do her a world of good, she knew. Gripping the rail as her strength slowly returned, the courier felt clammy as if she were suffering from a particularly bad hangover.<br/><br/>The few faces that were still prowling the service car blended in with the garish upholstery, as simple background noise in an otherwise miserable personal hell. She plopped down in a seat, reaching out a trembling hand towards the menu. The calligraphy was so sharply rendered, that trying to read it was making her nauseous again. She tapped her water glass as the rail server passed, and he wordlessly filled it.<br/><br/>Unnoticed by the courier, she had caught the attention of another passenger. Roma eyed her from across the room. Or more accurately, the gypsy eyed her case. Roma had seen it in her minds eye dozens of times today, the lacquered cherry wood etched into her memory. Furtively, she looked about, hopeful that McFlynn was still in the car.<br/><br/>She wasn't.<br/><br/>The aborigine had been making a habit of irritating Roma, so it was hardly a surprise that she was consistent even now when she needed her. Roma would have prefered that the monsters were the ones to get their hands dirty. Without a sound, she reached into her hair to draw out a hat pin. She gripped it in an underhanded hold, the glimmering steel hidden behind the frills of her dress as she stood up casually to approach the courier.<br/><br/>Roma gnawed on her lip nervously, taking another step towards the courier's exposed back. She had done it a hundred times before, but it never got any easier. Insert the pin into the spine sharply between the vertebrae, inducing paralysis instantly. Roma didn't need to see through the heavy tweed jacket. She could feel the sweet spot from eight paces away.<br/><br/>Seven... six... five...<br/><br/>The courier drank gratefully from her glass, the cool water doing her a world of good. The sea within her stomach began to settle considerably. The cardstock menu felt strangely reassuring between her fingertips as she set down her empty glass. She heard the creak of the floorboards behind her as Roma approached, but paid it no mind, instead taking the opportunity to examine her case again.<br/><br/>Yes... It was still there.<br/><br/>Roma let out a sharp hiss of breath as she lunged forward, the needle meeting little resistance from the tweed or the tender flesh beneath. The courier's eyes widened and she let out a soundless scream. Roma was shocked to find that for the first time in her recollection... her victim could move. She swung her case as if it were a bludgeoning weapon, the wood making a solid "CRACK" against Roma's forehead.<br/><br/>The courier flopped out of her chair, awkwardly trying to reach the pin that was still wedged into her spine. Like a mime in it's death throes, she gnashed her teeth noiselessly as she flailed in a panic. Roma clutched her bleeding face, the few night time passengers still in the dinner car too shocked to react. The woman in tweed lunged drunkenly to her feet, her case clutched in a death grip as she took a jaunty step back towards her cabin.<br/><br/>The gypsy cursed, pulling herself up into a dining chair, blood streaming down her scalp and into her eye. Gritting her teeth as she began to see double, Roma moved to give chase, but stopped as she felt something whizz past her head.<br/><br/>Something buried itself in the couriers shoulder, spinning her around like a top. She felt her shoulder-blade shatter from the impact, her parasol falling from useless fingers as she hit the ground. It was almost three seconds after the impact that she heard the rifle report in the distance. Eight cars up the train, McFlynn blew a stray bit of powder off of her lens, working to line up another shot. She held her breath, feeling the target in the distance.<br/><br/>Her father had been a dowser. In the outback, he could find water, food, shelter. All he had needed was a stray bit of ash wood and the will. Miss McFlynn didn't need to find any of those things. The only thing she ever looked for was blood. The great thing about her job was that she often found it. In abundance.<br/><br/>She squeeze the trigger, the kickback of the rifle stirring something almost sexual deep within her as she fired again. The courier had been weakly crawling along the floor of the car, attempting to get back on her uncertain feet. The second bullet landed squarely against her case, breaking her fingers as it was pitched free of her grasp. It clattered to the ground in pieces, but it's owner was past caring. The woman in tweed made it to her feet once more and with her shattered hand resting against her chest, she took the last few steps towards the diner car's exit.<br/><br/>As the door slid open, she found a small boy on the other side peering up at her with amber eyes. In the moment of hesitation, as she took a confused step backwards, he pulled down the bandanna that covered the lower half of his face. There was a gaping maw where a mouth should be, the absence of a lower jaw replaced by a long, prehensile tongue. Wickedly edged, the barbed tongue lashed out like a snake, opening a fatally deep wound in the courier from crotch to sternum. She fell backwards, the screams of the passengers growing ever further off in the distance as her hearing began to give out.<br/><br/>Roma stooped to pick up the shattered case where it had fallen, shaking at it curiously. Splinters and nothing more rattled free from the housing. The case was empty. She flung it away with a curse, striding towards the courier as her blood began to stain the carpet. Seeing that her little "friend" was intent upon feeding, she held up her hand, "Sunday... stop!"<br/><br/>The woman in tweed was breathing rapidly now, a wheezing sound filling the cabin from the punctured lung she'd received. Roma stood over her, hiding her sympathy behind a mask of ferocity, "I will make it worse. The pain. I will make it so bad you long for hell. Death will not save you from me, messenger. Tell me where it is. Where is the parcel?"<br/><br/>The courier lifted her hand, her fingers bent at unnatural angles as she rested them on her chest, trying to stop the blood. She gripped at her ribcage, exhaling slowly as her fingers sank into the seam opened up in her flesh. With a sharp tug and a crimson spray, she opened herself up like a cabinet. There was no crack or pop as of broken bones. Impossibly, she simply... opened.<br/><br/>Like a puppet with it's strings cut, she fell motionless, her chest left swinging and open. There were no organs or even any blood. Just blackness inside the woman, like the opening of a particularly deep well. And then something reached out from the velvety darkness, though it was like no hand Roma had ever seen. It was inexplicable in shape and terrifying in size.<br/><br/>It pulled itself out of the courier, too large to have ever fit inside the slender woman in the first place. Wedged within her remains, it dragged itself out onto the floor of the train car with a chattering sound that made Roma nauseous. Her mind tried to cope with the visage of the thing, the sheer impossibility of it's existence pinning her still with dull animal terror. The air around it warped and twisted in a heat haze as if reality itself could scarcely tolerate it to exist.<br/><br/>Sunday stared up at the creature as it filled the cabin, still wearing the courier like an ill fitting pair of pants. Her spine twisted wetly as the thing managed to pull it's other arm free. Sunday knelt, prostrating himself before the thing as it glared down at him with eyes that belong in the unseen depths of the sea. Too many to count, they were unblinking and without the capacity for mercy. It was far too late for fealty to the greater horror, and the demon, Sunday, trembled as the thing's serrated teeth were bared, it's jaw dislocating like a snake's as it lunged forward to consume him.<br/><br/>Eight cars ahead, McFlynn stared at "it" through her scope, her gorge rising as she felt fear for the first time in her adult life. As far away as the thing was, she could see enough to know she didn't want to see it any more clearly. The aborigine slammed the butt of her rifle into the window, tumbling out into the night time countryside. She skidded down the rocks, grateful for each bump and rock that she collided with, the pain reminding her she was alive and out of the train.<br/><br/>The service car was a blood bath, the thing spreading death and madness with each step it took towards Roma. The gypsy stood her ground, her lip quivering as it approached. It extended a long and sharply serrated limb, like a mantis claw, a glistening spike crowning it's tip. The thing caressed her bloodied forehead like a lover, whispering something from a thousand mouths in a language that had not been spoke since before the birth of man. There was a "CHOCK" sound as the tip of it's limb was wedged sharply into Roma's skull.<br/><br/>She twitched briefly, feeling a sensation unlike any she had before. It was as if she had been in a dark room her entire life and only now had someone turned on the light. She could see what the thing saw, the vision of its hundreds of eyes feeding directly into her brain. It could feel her terror and she could feel its gratitude for her freely given fear. Roma watched her own mouth open as she screamed.<br/><br/>The chatter of the thing whispered in an almost feminine voice, "I will make it worse. The pain. I will make it so bad you long for hell. Death will not save you from me." Somehow the gypsy knew the voice didn't belong to the thing. It was too alien to waste time mocking a creature as insignificant as Roma was. It was the Courier speaking to her. And she was right.<br/><br/>Roma already longed for Hell as she divined the creature's intentions moments before it acted on them.<br/><br/>++++++++<br/><br/>She tapped on the display glass, drawing the clerk's attention to the suitcase inside. Spanish leather of a vibrant chocolate hue, its snaps were silver and iron. The slim locking mechanism was a glistening lion's head, it's teeth ringing the keyhole. It looked sturdy and well made, but more to the point it was quite stylish and went well with her new parasol. In short, she had to have it.<br/><br/>"Oh, it's very nice, miss. You've a good eye for quality." The clerk retrieved it from the display case, sliding it forward for the woman to examine. Strangely dressed in a gentleman's tweed suit, she at the very least had money, despite her unusual taste. She adjusted her hat fussily atop her mane of blond curls as she leaned in to examine the case with a skeptical eye.<br/><br/>Oh yes. She had to have it.<br/><br/>"You are from Italy?" The clerk asked, noting the make of her suit. The Courier nodded affably, hooking the grip of her parasol around her wrist as she began to dig through her billfold. The clerk shook his head, "Have you heard the trouble on the rails? Such a tragedy the crash. So many dead. But then I have never been one to trust those trains."<br/><br/>Wordlessly she counted out the bills, spacing them on the glass carefully, one next to another before sliding them towards the clerk with a soft nod of her head. Seeing that she was not in the mood for conversation, the clerk accepted the money, resting the suitcase and its key on the table, "Merci for your generous purchase, mademoiselle. Welcome to Calais. The ships to Sussex will begin boarding in the morning. Enjoy your evening here."<br/><br/>The Courier nodded her thanks, savoring the feeling of the leather against her fingers. The case had a reassuring weight to it that she appreciated as she stepped out into the street. As she made her way towards her inn, she could make out the islands across the Dover Straight. The cool sea air was doing her a world of good, her delicate stomach complaints having all but vanished for the past two days.<br/><br/>She tapped her parasol against the ground, enjoying the sound of it's tip against the cobblestone. It was a glorious evening, and she swung her newly purchased case with a bit more swagger than she might. New clothes and accessories always invigorated her. Come world's end, she was always much more at ease when she was fashionably dressed.<br/><br/>Passing the docks, she spun the key to her suitcase idly around her finger, eyeing it in the moonlight. As impressive as the lion's mouth lock was, the key was distressingly unremarkable. She paused briefly, kneeling over the case as she locked it up tightly. Satisfied, she tossed the key into the Dover, giggling silently at the "splash" sound as it skipped briefly over the surface.<br/><br/>+++<br/><br/>"What if she opens up something we can't shut?"<br/>"... we all die. Reward is not without risk."