"Would you like some fresh nutmeg on the cappuccino? Or some cinnamon?"
Amanda looked out the window of the coffee shop into the dark night. The City was bustling out there, throbbing and vibrant. She was sure what she needed would be out there somewhere.
"Ma'am?" the barista asked again. "Would you like some nutmeg or cinnamon?"
Amanda came back to attention.
"Oh," she said. "Yes- yes, I'll have both."
"Wonderful."
The barista first ground the nutmeg, then sprinkled the cinnamon onto the foamed milk of the cappuccino, then affixed the plastic lid. He handed the coffee drink to Amanda.
"It's cold out there," the barista said. "The spices will help to warm you up. That's what my grandmother always said."
Amanda smiled, accepting the cup.
"Your grandmother sounds like a smart woman."
She looked out into the dark and busy night of the City. She was about to go out into the cold, amidst the nighttime rush, amongst the early holiday shoppers, the drinkers, the hustlers and crooks. She was looking for something, something very specific, and she hoped she didn't have to look long for it.
Amanda was looking for as close to pure evil as she could find.
She took a sip of the hot coffee, and smiled at the man behind the counter. She looked into his eyes, looking for something in them.
Yes, she knew. His grandmother was still alive.
"Very good," she said. "Call your grandmother soon, OK? Tell her that you love her."
The barista nodded.
Amanda turned and opened the door, and stepped out into the cold night. She was looking for the person in all the City that had the blackest, deadest remnant of where a heart used to be. She was sure she would find it.
******************************
Amanda walked down the streets, the night cold and clear. She sipped at her coffee as she went, walking up and down a popular shopping district, the holiday decorations already starting to go up, earlier and earlier each year. She looked into the windows as she went, idly looking at the mannequins dressed up in finery. Fake people that real people looked up at and wished they could be more like.
She also looked into the people as she walked around, glancing over their thoughts and feelings, probing a little deeper into those that she thought might have something she needed.
But there was nothing all that interesting there, nothing really that couldn't be guessed at by anyone. There were some low levels of fear in some of the passerby, some anxiety, a woman Amanda passed by was fucking a guy that was not her husband. A man was stealing from work. Nothing that needed a second look.
Amanda kept walking.
After an hour, she stopped by a trash can, and put her now empty cup in. She pulled her phone out, and checked for messages.
She smiled. John had sent her one, hoping that she was warm, urging her to be cautious.
I know you can handle yourself
, the message read.
But there's more evil out there than you probably know. I don't know what I would do if you didn't come back to me. Be careful.
Silly, she thought. I'll come back to you, John.
She walked another couple of blocks, and came to the river. She stood there for a minute, looking at it gently flow by.
So peaceful, she thought.
She shivered. She was dressed lightly, despite the cold. She had dressed for appearance, wearing her boots with the highest heels, making her tall and statuesque. She was simply dressed in skin-tight black leggings, hugging her hips and accentuating every curve. Her blouse was start white and sheer silk, also tight across her breasts. Her nipples were erect in the cold, and free from any bra, pushing hard against the thin fabric. Her hair spilled loose and almost white in the moonlight across her shoulders.
She had dressed for attention. She had been getting it. There hadn't been very many men she'd passed who hadn't noticed her, hadn't considered fucking her on some level. She wanted them to think about it, to want her. She wanted one of them to make a move, to approach her, to hurt her. She needed one of them to want to rape her.
She took a turn at the river, and began walking down the streets toward Grimm Town. The streetlights grew dimmer, more sporadic, as she went. The sidewalks began to reveal fractures, bleeding into cracks, opening up into fissures as the blocks went on.
Amanda walked down a deserted street. She saw light dancing at her feet, and slowed down as a car pulled up next to her at the curb. She stopped, and watched as the passenger side window rolled down. She bent down, and looked into the car.
"How much," the man in the car said quietly, nervously, looking up and down the street.
"What?" she asked him.
"How much to suck my dick," he repeated, his voice tight and hoarse.
Amanda stood up to her full height, squinting down at the man. She looked inside him, and saw fear, and guilt, and felt his cock hard in his pants at the thought of her getting in his car and wrapping her lips around his cock. She could see an image in his mind of him holding her head down tightly on his ejaculating dick, forcing her to gulp down the jets of cum while he called her a bitch, and a whore, demanding that she drink it all. She felt his
need
, and knew that he was scared of getting robbed, and getting arrested. She knew that he was married, that he would drive home with his limp, spent dick to his family afterwards, as if he was the man they thought he was once again.
She reached out with her mental powers, and gave him a little crack.
He flinched from the pain that whipped across his mind, white hot pain, erupting from his behind his forehead and bursting across his psyche, receding as quickly as it came. His body tensed as if from grabbing a live wire, slumping down into his car seat after the jolt had passed.
His dick withered, softened.
"You don't want to be doing this," she said. "You want to turn your car around, and go home. Go home to your family, and don't come back here."
He nodded at her, his mouth slack and agape, as he fumbled at the keys in his ignition. His eyes never left hers as he cranked the engine to life, and sped off into the darkness.
Amanda watched him drive away, turn the corner.
She kept walking.
******************************
An hour or so later, she felt him. She didn't see him; she didn't know when he had seen her. That was a little surprising. But see her he had, and he was now following her.
She found him in the night with her mind, and looked inside. She was horrified at what she found here. John was right... there certainly was evil that she had never considered before, and this was it, behind her, and stalking her.
Whatever they had called him before was long gone, and what was left of him now was called Little Sammy. Little Sammy had a mind that was like a storm of fire, red slashes of pain and hate across the pure black of something that had long ago lost all ability to care about the hurt it caused.
And cause hurt Little Sammy did. She heard the screams of his victims still reverberating in what was left of his mind, she could feel his excitement at the sight of their blood, taste his mouth as he salivated at the fear and pain he caused them. She saw him take pieces of them, bits of bloodstained clothing and panties, and lengths of hair, and felt his almost sexual excitement as he put those in a secret box. She saw him look at his grotesque human trophies as he readied himself to stalk again.
Now he was somewhere behind her in the night, stalking her.
She kept walking, hearing only the click of her boots reverberating off the brick walls and broken windows. She took a quick left down an alley.
Behind her, Little Sammy reached into his jacket, fingering the cruel knife he had there. He crept along in the darkness, avoiding the few street lights that still worked, silently gliding over the broken pavement as he did most nights. He wasn't always so lucky, he didn't always see such attractive prey so alone and isolated.
Probably a whore, he thought. Although she didn't look quite like one. Little Sammy enjoyed whores, he liked to cut them, liked to leave them bleeding in the cold and the dark.
Little Sammy crept into the alley behind Amanda. He knelt behind a dumpster, and pulled his knife out of his jacket pocket.
His knife was the nicest thing that he'd ever owned, really, the only thing he cared about. It was a long, evil blade, curved in a way that made a wound that would never close up. He liked the blood, he liked the smell of it, the taste of it, liked to rub it on himself.
He wanted to see Amanda's face as she saw her precious, precious blood come pouring out.
Even better, the alley was a dead end. Little Sammy knelt behind Amanda, watched her back as she faced the brick wall. There was nowhere for her to run. No one to hear her scream.
He crept out from behind the dumpster, and took a couple of steps towards her. He was not, no matter what they called him, a small man. But Little Sammy could move very quietly, years of practice had taught him how.
He moved closer to Amanda. He was struck by how pretty she was, maybe not a whore after all, maybe lost or something. It didn't matter. He was almost close enough to slip his knife into her back and open her up once and for all.
But then she turned around, and looked down at him crouching there, at the last second before he was about to leap on her.
"You're what I've been looking for," she said.
He didn't know what that meant and didn't care, leaping silently at her, his blade stretched out, ready to cut her wide open in one quick and cruel slice, as he had so many other times.
A blinding light flashed in the alley, white hot, a little silent explosion. Searing pain split across Little Sammy's mind, and the light flung him backwards from his leap and down into the cold, wet pavement of the alley.
He landed with a grunt. He stayed there, his mind attempting to communicate with his legs, synapses of panic arriving nowhere.
Amanda strode towards him, quickly, almost as if gliding over the pavement. She stood above him, her blonde hair somehow illuminated and radiant in the dark alley, shining like a beacon. She looked down at Little Sammy, his hand a crude claw clutching for his knife, still trying to put his body and mind together as one in order to get up and finish the job of cutting her.
"You really are something awful," she whispered. "So much hurt you've caused."
Little Sammy grunted, and pulled himself up to one knee. He forced his fingers around his knife again.
"You'll never hurt anyone again," Amanda told him. "Your hurting days are over."
Little Sammy grabbed the knife tightly, looking up at Amanda's stomach, readying his unsteady hands to plunge the blade deep into her.
The light flashed again, bursting from Amanda's face, obscuring her. The light lashed across Little Sammy's mind, exploding past his skull, making every nerve ending in his body erupt into agony. An unseen force lifted him up into the air, holding him there, his legs kicking uselessly against the power and the pain as the white light danced around the alley.
He dropped his blade, heard it fell to the ground with a metallic ring.
Amanda kept him there, jerking in the air, searing into his mind with wave after wave of pain. Finally, she lowered him down, his feet unsteady but holding him upright somehow. She regarded him dispassionately, watching his chest heave as his body attempted to regulate his breathing again.
She walked past him wordlessly, towards the mouth of the alley and back out to the street. She didn't look behind her, she didn't have to. She knew that he was following her.
A couple of blocks later, she finally turned around to look at him. His expression was mostly blank, with some elements of confusion and pain still flickering past. But he wasn't a threat to her anymore, and would never be a threat to anyone ever again.
"You'll do just fine," she said. "Do you like scotch?"
Some part of Little Sammy still knew to nod.
***************************
Anna was unloading the dishwasher, a task that she genuinely hated. She wasn't sure why she hated it so much, but for whatever reason it annoyed her. She hadn't liked it a lot when she was living alone, but hadn't noticed it as much then.
Of course, there were a lot less dishes then. When she was out each night as the Spider, there had been mainly take-out food, paper plates, disposable cups.
These days it was her job, the kitchen, cooking the meals, all three of them unless they went out, cleaning up after them as well. It was her job to keep the kitchen stocked, keep the apartment clean.
Anna took a sip of the wine. Sweet. She had another.
She opened the cabinet, and began to put the plates back where they went.
"Sweetheart?"
