'til our fingers decompose

six

DELPHI
— before gilmore & co. 

The music box in Delphi's hand faintly clicks shut, groans loudly, then continues its general ghostly mumbling and grumbling. Her free hand swipes across her forehead; her far-too-long fringe sticks to her skin by a mixture of sweat and rainwater, obscuring her vision more than the weather does. She shoves the box into her backpack.

Her legs sort-of give out from under her, and she sits against the wall of the sandy riverbank with a long release of the breath she's been holding in for the past five minutes. Cold Maidens are stupid fast. All she did was brush sand off the source and it came hurtling at her, screaming so loud her eardrums practically burst. Dramatic, if you ask her.

The box'll fetch a good price from Dawson at least. Worth the almost-going-deaf bit.

Her gloved hands dig around in her pockets. She pulls out a notepad, finds a pen wedged between a tissue and a locket wrapped in silver net, and starts scribbling in her doctor-like handwriting. 

"COLD MAIDEN (MUSIC BOX)

- 500 £

- Ask for more. Rip off

- Room for 3 days ? Is week pushing it ? Ask

- Threaten to kill self"

Delphi draws a line through the last point, then deigns for two exclamation marks beside the second. 

Dawson's always been stingy with, well, everything. Kyrell Dawson, owner of the Snuggly Duckling pub about half a mile's walk from where she's sat, is the opposite of the relic-man stereotype in everything but ruthlessness. He makes a point to present perfect and clean-shaven— Delphi's found him staring at himself in the bathroom mirror more than once, combing his hands through his curls and adjusting them this way and the other for hours. Unlike the grave robbers she's found herself dealing with many a time before, there's never a tinge of dirt beneath his fingernails nor on any inch of his ironed shirts. 

And then there's the ego. Despite at the least bordering his mid-forties, and having lost any kind of Talent he may have had at her age, Dawson's thoroughly convinced he's the greatest man ever to grace the Earth. Half the time he's telling Delphi to run around for him "because he said so", and the other, he's paying her half of what he promised and taking double her findings anyway. It's infuriating.

But Delphi can't complain. The three years she spent fending for herself, entirely for herself, those were something she'd never go back to. And regardless of how hard she has to work to earn even a nod in her direction, Dawson's kind. Self-centered and cold and unforgiving at times, but kind. She's the same with him.

It's simply how they all learnt to be. 

The brunette finishes the doodle of a flower she was adding in the corner of the page, and pulls herself off the ground with a scrunch of her face. Her legs ache; a raindrop hits her face and trickles down the bridge of her nose, and she sticks her tongue up to lick it before pulling her hood up. 

The box groans again in her backpack. Her fist reaches around to smack it into submission through the material, and it goes quiet. Sometimes she thinks the ghosts just like giving her headaches.

Probably. She's not much better than the agents who practically exterminate them.

When she looks back down, a droplet has ruined her drawing, the ink flowing with the excess water and dripping onto her already sodden hands. A sigh releases between her lips. She's never particularly been a good-luck charm— her parents said that once, Dawson's said it time after time whenever she's messed up before an auction. She just seems to attract bad omens.

Maybe she is one. Everyone's so scared of them, nowadays, with the Problem— makes sense everyone steers clear. That, and the one London Journal article that painted her as some dangerous murderer.

Who cares, right? She's the one making a name for herself. She even overshadowed that Scarlett girl for front page, once, after stealing something from right underneath a Rotwell agent's nose. 

She's surviving. That's what matters.

Her watch starts beeping. Five minutes to get to Dawson's before he barrs the doors and never lets her in again. Or not for the next week, at least, before he (always) relents.

Delphi practically caterpults up the stairs and down the street. If she has to sleep in the rain tonight, maybe "threaten to kill self" is actually the best plan she has.