Warren Ellis - Histoire courte

VIAL

She'd never looked more beautiful. It'd been a year since he'd seen her, but he knew she'd never looked better. She glowed. There was light in her eyes. He couldn't help but look her up and down, eyes drawn to her breasts by the glass-vial pendant laying in her cleavage. It was full of something, all red and black.

He pulled off the headphones and stepped down from his decks, indicating the rear door away from the stomp and thrash of the dancefloor. The door closed behind them, turning the club outside into hiss.

"You move around a lot," she smiled, too close to him.

"I go where the work is," he said easily. "Why? Been looking for me? It's been a while."

"Yes. And yes." Her fingers stroked the long vial. "We have something to tell you."

"We?"

She held the pendant-vial up into the light from the corridor's single flourescent tube. There was something withered and black in there, suspended in viscous fluid. Little particles of blood floated in the syrup. She shook the vial. The blood-dots flew up like a snowglobe's blizzard, revealing the features of the blackened foetus.

"Hello, daddy. Say 'hello, daddy'." Her eyes glittered. "Hello, daddy."



(© Warren Ellis 2006 etc etc. )