A lonely stretch of Nevada desert as the last few rays of daylight cut a blazing path across the sky. Clusters of cacti dot the flat landscape, erupting like lonely green spears from the sand. Save for the occasional snake, or scorpion, there doesn’t seem to be much by the way of life roaming through this swath of desert. That is, with the notable exception of the hearse parked in front of one particular cluster of cacti. The vintage vehicle was beautiful in its own right, a fresh black coat of paint covering over that well maintained 1965 frame. Drawn across the back windows of the hearse were a new pair of red velvet and black lace curtains. All that love, for a hearse.
Sitting atop the roof of that funeral coach was Belle Landru. A general quiet hangs in the air, punctuated only by the occasional din of the distant traffic roaring down the far off highway. On the opposite side of that distant highway sat a strip of dotted buildings, hard to make out definitively at such a distance. The hearse jerks quickly, rattling for a moment on its axels. The soft clinking of jingling glass bottles sounds from the belly of the beast as it rocks.
A groan passed from Belle’s lips as she shifted to lie on her back. That smirk she perpetually wore curled into something more of a scowl as she gazed up into the early twilight sky. The sun would set soon enough, but that wasn’t going to help her in the mean time. A series of slow mutters crossed from past her lips as she smacked her hand down against the roof of her car, pawing brashly for her sunglasses as she squinted. Daylight be damned, she had never really been much to spend her time with the would-be-vampires of the French Quarter, but she had never fallen into the category of sun worshipper either.
“Fuck this…”
Belle was the first one to suggest that there was just something about her voice that wasn’t quite right. Jarring, was the term she seemed to like to use in describing it. Something about it could have been described as sexy, that rasp, that dusty hint that suggested long nights in the tradition of prohibition era speakeasies. But then, there was also that gravely tone. You could take the girl out of New Orleans, but you were never going to take that rough scratch out of her voice. And on top of that, the drinking and that oh, so unhealthy cigarette habit. But, there was something about that voice that defined her. All the little things that made up the facets of who she was.
Having expressed her dissent to no one in particular, she let her hand smack down hard against the textured roof of her vehicle. The plastic of her sunglasses crunched slightly in her hand as she located them, her scowl fading back into her usual smirk.
“Silence.”
She slid the black, heart shaped frames onto her face, settling them carefully over her eyes.
“Consumate, desolate silence.”
She was off on some tangent. Often it was hard to gauge just what Belle was going on about. At times, it seemed that she thought differently than most people, but perhaps that was just a product of her environment. But then, it was always people like her who made for the most dangerous ideologists. Her hands turned to the pockets of her pants, beginning to fish in them for something. The black jeans hung loose around her legs, the material was worn, faded, threadbare in places and crudely patched over in others. And yet, that faded pair of black jeans were often the only thing that she wore.
She sat up as her hands came from within her pockets with a soft pack of cigarettes and a black Zippo. Placing a cigarette between her lips, she started to pull one of her legs up to her chest, curling her arm around her leg. As the cigarette dangled precariously from her lips, she opened her lighter, striking it seamlessly against the side of her leg in a fluid motion. Raising the flame to the cigarette, she took a single drag from it, the end coming to life with an amber glow.
“This place really isn’t all that different from the wilds of the bayou. Peaceful, but probably not the kinda place you wanna have someone sneak up on you. Kinda like Jackson Square at that.”
There was something funny about the thought of someone sneaking up on Belle. She certainly looked a lot more like the type that you didn’t want to have catching you in a dark alley than the type to worry about who is off lurking in the dark corners of the night. Then again, she had learned that she needed to watch her back at all times or there was no telling just what could happen. Her neck and shoulders rolled carefully in a stretch as she moved atop that vehicle again. The heavy cross around her neck shifted, settling along the front of her shirt, resting heavy atop the Casualties logo slashed across the front of her red shirt. The tank top had started life as a t-shirt, and several sizes bigger than it was now, in fact.
“Decent place to come forget your sorrows, drink away your blues, and bury the bodies.”
She took a long drag from that cigarette again, tipping her head back and exhaling several low smoke rings up towards the sky. They floated upwards, cooling as they went, floating above her head like fleeting, spectral halos. The filter of her cigarette was a mess of red lipstick, the bright hue a riot of color on the end of the cigarette. She let out a few sharp, high laughs as she looked up to the sky, the joyous tones hanging ominously in the air. Impossibly red lips were smirking again as she lowered her head back down, setting her right foot onto the edge of the funeral coach, dangling the left off the edge. Her black boots looked as beaten up as the rest of her, even though the red laces looked as brand new as the coat of paint on the car.
“That isn’t to say that the place doesn’t lack a certain… Bayou charm. Not to mention alligators.”
There was something markedly blank about her expression as she added that last bit. Her nonchalance could almost have been measured as outright disturbing. But then, it wasn’t like she looked like the type to go out killing people and feeding them to alligators. Sure, she looked like the type to start a bar room brawl, maybe even a street fight, but she didn‘t seem all that much like the terror that was going to sneak up on you and stick you with a knife before dumping you to your watery grave. If you asked her, that lacked a certain sort of finesse. A sinister chuckle passed from her lips as she removed her cigarette, flicking the ashes away into the desert sand.
The landscape behind her was slowly coming to life, as though someone had taken a match and set it ablaze. The last dying vestiges of sunlight painted a gorgeous sight behind Belle, not that she seemed to pay it any attention. With a flick of her wrist, her cigarette was tossed out to the side, the amber tip glowing out its last some feet away, tucked into the sand like a dying beacon. Her right hand tucked back into the pocket of her jeans as the left slid up to push her sunglasses up into her hair.
Without the lenses covering her face, her eyes stared outwards like two black holes burnt into her face. Between the amount of eyeliner circling her eyes and their own dark hue there was something darkly otherworldly about the effect. If it hadn’t been for the red and silver eye shadow accents she wore, her ocular cavities might have looked somewhat sunken and empty, even. The makeup is almost enough to obscure the angry purple bruise circling her left eye. But still, the injury glares forth, her face swollen into the apple of her cheek.
“I once spent two days on a bender in this desert.”
Her left hand placed another cigarette between her lips as the right slid out of her pocket. Something on her right hand glinted faintly in the harsh, setting daylight. Drawing her foot back along the roof of the car, she moved up into a crouching position.
“When I stumbled back to Las Vegas, still half-blind drunk, I got fucked over on my debut with OWN. Then again, that’s what they get for booking me against Hollywood Hooker Barbie. Adding insult to injury, the dumb sow couldn’t be bothered to show up to our match, but damned if she didn’t come storming out to try and protect her boyfriend from a beat down during his match.”
Her right hand slid back into her hair, ruffling it, and pushing it back from her face. She shook her head as her hand came down to rest on her hip. Once again, the light glints off of the object on her hand. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a ring. Or at least, not a single ring.
“Icing on the fucking cake with that company. But, fuck that. I can’t see the point to caring about any of that now. Rob and I had gotten divorced for the second time and moving out to the desert and going back to doing what I loved was just what I needed. Even if upper-fucking-management didn’t know how to handle themselves and their company went down like the god damn Titanic.”
Belle stood up to her full height on top of the funeral coach. She lit her cigarette, taking another drag off of it and then tucking her lighter into the back pocket of her pants, tucking her hand into it and leaning back. Darkness was starting to close in around her. In the distance, headlights started to shine down that stretch of highway, the little dotted buildings in the distance coming to life in a riot of color, neon, and flashing lights.
“If nothing else, I was at least able to prove that for all my obvious flaws, I wasn’t a liability.”
Sure, she had never been found guilty of a crime, but Belle did have quite the arrest record. Acquittals only meant so much. A pattern of violent behavior was the sort of thing that spoke for itself. And yet, she had been willing to walk the straight and narrow in order to indulge in her lust for blood for profit. If she was going to fight and put herself through that, she might as well have been getting paid for it.
Her composure started to crack as the hearse beneath her began rattling again. Starting to life in violent jumps and jerks, she fought for a few moments to keep her footing. She hopped down into the sand, the desert rising up around her in clouds at that landing, the soles of her boots grinding down. As the earth settles around her, she eases from her heels, onto her toes, stretching and raising her arms over her head. She puffed angrily on the cigarette hanging from between her lips, turning to flash middle fingers at the hearse.
“I walked out of the rubble a champion, even while they were left licking their wounds after their demise. Though, I will admit there is a matter of some unfinished business. Such a shame I won‘t be the one to give him what he‘s got coming.”
A few hard steps carried her to the back of the vehicle, the door pulled roughly open and out. Cloaked in the falling darkness, the young woman stuck her head into the back of the vehicle, cursing at just what, or whom, ever was in it. She slammed the door, abruptly, and it started to shake on its axels again. It wasn’t just the suspension that rattled this time, but now there was also the scraping of a chain, metal clanking on metal. And then the funeral coach roared to life, a sudden belch of flames coming from both her tailpipes.
Framed between the red glow of her taillights, Belle was cast in a sinister, red glow.
“Sometimes, in life, we have to fight to get what we want. And sometimes, in life, all we want is a fight.”
She settled in to rest her hip against the back of her hearse. She took a few drags from that cigarette as she leaned there. She spent a few moments ruminating on things. Or, whatever it was that she did in the quiet moments. The clear ones, at least. Sometimes, it was just those liquor soaked hazes you had to watch out for. Belle had come a long way from her days as a panhandling street punk with a penchant for violence, but there were just some things that would never change. Sure, she was more polished now, but that fighting spirit that had so often frustrated trainers and sparring partners still burned. It was the flame that stoked the fires of her rage.
“So, here I am again. Just a girl, out for a fight. And wouldn‘t you fucking know it, I’m put in the middle of things with opponents who couldn’t give two shits about me. So, write me off. I encourage it. But, don‘t be surprised when you find yourself paying the sinner‘s wage.”
The back door of her hearse was opened again and she pulled out the tray that would have normally been used to transport a coffin. Instead, hers was littered with all manner of personal effects. Mainly, women’s undergarments, with a healthy helping of empty beer bottles strewn about. Most notably, however, there was a human foot, clad in a black sock. And in the middle of all that, the OWN TV Championship belt. The taillights glinted on it, though it didn’t look like she gave it much regard. She had really just taken it for the hell of it. When the last check hadn’t cleared, she hadn’t even felt all that bad about it. To the victor, go the spoils, as they say.
“I know I’m going to win my match at No Limits. It isn‘t because of my abilities. It isn‘t because I can break Cage‘s arms, or Light‘s nose, or because I‘m not afraid to shed some blood. ”
She sat down on the edge of the tray that she had just pulled out, shoving the bottles out of the way. She moved up onto her knees, kneeling in the glow of the taillights. The stark whiteness of her skin was only exaggerated by the red glow. She had an otherworldly look about her, she was the monster lurking in the darkness. Her eyes glimmered in the darkness, empty and distant, even as she assumed a position like one she had adopted in prayer as a child. The item on her hand glinted again. Lit up in red, the brass knuckle glimmered clearly. She let her lips set in that usual smirk as she clasped her hands. She turned to look over her shoulder.
“I have faith.”
She reached up to trail her fingers along the chain of the cross around her neck. Digits played delicately along it, running down to the cross, tracing the shape of it lovingly.
“And where there is faith, there is certainty. And where there is certainty, there can be no fear.”
She drew the word fear out. Uttering each syllable slowly, letting it drip from her lips. She smiled, then. Something about her smile was more demented than that smirk, or even her scowl. A hand shot out from inside of the hearse to grab at her leg. She faced it down with a cold, tempered glare, tossing her long ignored cigarette to the side.
“Do you feel faith?”
She stopped addressing the figure in the back of her funeral coach and looked out ahead again. Behind her, the Las Vegas city lights glow noticeably in the distance. The Luxor’s violently bright spotlight cuts a spotlight straight up into the night sky. The far off lights punctuate Belle’s own reserved manner.
“Or do you feel fear?”
She finishes without missing a beat, reaching into the hearse to pull herself back into it on the tray, groping blindly behind her to slam the door of the hearse. The vehicle shakes on its suspension for a few moments before the engine revs, the tires fishtailing violently as the funeral coach roars out across the desert, throwing up sand in every direction. The glow of the red taillights disappears slowly into the distance as the scene fades out to black.