The Envy of All the Girls...

{{Storyline
 * author=Steve Crow
 * hasSetting=Deadlands Weird West
 * storyBody====Salem, 1692===

"An outstanding performance, my dear. Perhaps the best it has ever been my privilege to witness."

Anne spun, startled, as the voice whispered in her ear. The man who had moved silently behind her was well-dressed in the finest styles from Englandn. He was tall, elegant, and handsome, with impeccably styled white hair. And yet, Anne could sense...something about him. His face seemed almost to waver, as if what she saw was some manner of glamour.

The man took note of her glance and smiled. In return, he scrutinized Anne. She could feel his eyes boring into him, perhaps into her very soul. She shuddered.

"And yet, despite your recent testimony, you don't truly believe in the supernatural, do you? In the worlds that lie beyond this one? No matter. Tell me, my dear: did you enjoy making them suffer? Did you take pleasure in going into a trance, in shouting out the sins they were accused of and sentencing them to inevitable death?"

Anne flinched. How had he known...? And yet, there was something in the man's glance that compelled her to speak. Indeed, she had long sought the relief of confession, and somehow knew that the man would understand. Anne didn't even bother to look around. She somehow sensed that whatever was communicated between her and the stranger, it would go no further.

"Not all of them. Just Rebecah. She was always looking down on me. She thought she was so superior. But I showed her. So I spoke out against her."

"And the others?" the man asked, mildly enough. There was no tone of accusation in his voice. He asked only out of curiosity.

"Arrogant snobs, the lot of them. Or men who scorned me. What matter if they shared Rebecah's fate."

The man nodded, to himself, as if Anne's words had confirmed some inner suspicions. For herself, Anne was relieved. She held little regard for the church, and even if she had, she dared not bare her soul to any reverend. That would reveal her crime, and deny her her prize.

"Excellent, "he said, smiling broadly. "You may indeed be the one I seek."

"Seek for...what?" Anne asked hesitantly. She knew nothing of this stranger. He had not the look of a witch-finder or a man of the cloth. Her recent experiences, however, left her with no doubt that very little was what it truly seemed.

"I am amassing a... collection, of sorts. Of certain individuals, with a driving need at their heart. Seven individuals, to be exact. There are certain prophecies to be fulfilled, and certain promises to be kept. The number of seven has many talismanic properties, and is powerful indeed. You are the third of the Seven I must choose, and have not yet fully to choose."

"Listen carefully, now, for I offer you this chance but once. I am Elijah, and power can be yours for the taking. Power second only to my own, of course, but power such as you have never dreamed of."

The man, Elijah, moved closer. "What is it you wish, Anne? Beauty? A snap of my fingers, and anything within my power is yours for the taking. Wealth? Everything I have, which is considerable, will be yours for the taking. Long life? My plans will be centuries in motion, and you will be there with me through every moment of it."

Elijah stepped back a pace, sweeping his arm wide. "What is your alternative, Anne? To stay here, in this pathetic village? You may not share the fate of those you confessed against, but your life here will never be 'normal' again. There will always be a mark against you. And what of Giles, Mary's beau. He will never be yours. And indeed, do you really want him? Isn't he a simply farmer, far too crude for your tastes? Didn't you only want him because he was Mary's, and not yours? And of course, you felt that if your "visions" were greater than her's, he would seek you instead?"

Anne felt herself nodding at the stranger's words. It was true. Giles was a clod, albeit a handsome one. But he and Mary had laughed - laughed! At her! Mocked her learning, what little she could acquire in this provincial backwater. They had scorned her plain looks. And if Giles could not be hers, then he would be no ones.

It seemed as if Elijah could sense her inner thoughts. "Do you seek punishment upon Giles for rejecting you? That too is easy enough a wish to grant. When we're through, he'll scream as loudly as those bound for the gallows. Would that please you?"

Anne nodded. "Good. Then you are the one I seek. Take my hand, take my offer. First Giles, then the world. Join with me, and become the Third. I ask this but once: will you accept?"

There was no hesitation. Anne stepped forward, taking Elijah's extended hand. His smile broke out wider than ever, a triumphant grin.

Gomorra, 1877
Looking in the mirror, the woman who had once been Anne sighed. Elijah had not lied. Nearly three centuries of long life had been hers, and she looked little different than she had back in 1692.

She could have looked different. She could have beauty to exceed a common whore like Lilith Vandekamp, or surpass the wild unkempt attractiveness of a Rachel Sumner. But she had had such beauty in the past. And it had never been enough. Always, there was someone just a bit more attractive, more charismatic, more personable with the men. In frustration, Anne had ultimately reverted back to her original form, albeit a somewhat more aged one. Elijah had claimed anything further was beyond his power.

Could she die? Anne didn't know. She had seen the woman known as Gluttony embrace death a dozen times, as she embraced everything, yet rise each time under the touch of Elijah's healing hands.

Wrath and Pride had fought on a hundred battlefields, fought as if to stave off Death himself. Neither would relinquish their long lives without fight. Idleness seemed never to contemplate such thoughts, or any thought at all other than Elijah's will, while Avarice cared for nothing except the accumulation of wealth. Lechery meanwhile leant himself to the accumulation of... other things.

As for the others...who knew? Beyond the Seven, others had attached themselves to Elijah in more recent times. Although only she could see them, dark creatures had slunk from the shadows just prior to their arrival in Gomorra, and had rarely strayed far from their 'master' since. Who could guess at the thoughts of such creatures?

And the newest arrivals: John, Mary, Phillip, and Jacob. They were enigmas to Anne. They were not of the Seven, and they were hardly more skilled in the harnessing of Elijah's "miracle" than she was. Mary seemed almost worthless. But Elijah had called his dark spirits to him, and they answered him willingly enough. Or perhaps not. Who knew?

Anne supposed that this was her lot. Now, she envied even death, as she had envied with a burning heart anything that had been denied her, anything she imagined was better than what she had. She remembered how Elijah had promised the fulfillment of her every wish within his power to grant. And indeed, he had spoken truth. He had simply neglected to mention the price that she, and the others, would have to pay.

Now, the only remaining wish that she desired, she dare not ask of him. In her secret heart, she suspected it was the one wish that Elijah would not (or could not) grant her. Death would be too easy an escape for her, and one that would not suit his plans. The Seven were drawn, the other players were on the board. Now they would struggle, and perhaps die. All for whatever plan Elijah had for the town of Gomorra.

Perhaps Elijah would grant her wish, however indirectly. The best Anne could hope for was that she would die in some obscure battle, over the control of some pathetic strike or to gain influence over another stinking saloon. In the end, all she could do is fight, and hope that her struggles would break the strings Elijah used to control her.

Envy, as Anne now called herself and was known to by all others, adjusted the hat and checked its position in the mirror. As satisfied as possible, she turned. The store's owner, who had been hovering nervously in the background, bustled forward.

"Will that be sufficient, Miss...?"

"Is it the best that you have, shopkeeper?"

The reputation of Elijah's "Flock" preceded them. "It was shipped by stagecoach direct from Boston. There is none finer, my dear, in all of California."

Envy sighed wearily. The hat was of course, second-rate. There was a better one. There was always a better one. Somewhere, belonging to someone. One she couldn't obtain. "It will have to do," she snarled. Mentally, she cursed Elijah again, for being so discerning that he could see her one fatal flaw so many years ago, and turn it to whatever advantage that he sought in this game.

Taking her purse out, Envy snapped down payment for the hat. Relived, Miss Coutreau offered one final word of encouragement. "There's none finer in Gomorra. You'll be the envy of every woman in town."

That's what I'm afraid of, Envy thought to herself. As she stepped out of the store, she reached into the covered basket on her other arm, pulled out a single snake, and tossed it behind her. Miss Coutreau's screams rang gloriously in her ears. I hate irony.

The Clock Tower, Gomorra, 1877
"Gee, Mr. Elijah, is she really very useful?"

Tearing his gaze away from the slatted window, the self-proclaimed prophet known as 'Elijah' glanced at the boy next to him.

"She is part of my Lord's master plan, Phillip. Envy serves her purpose, as do they all. Even you."

"But...throwin' snakes around Gomorra? How does that help you?"

Elijah chuckled. "It spreads fear and insanity. And perhaps some deeper purpose as well, one my Lord has not chosen to communicate to me."

Phillip perched up on his toes, watching Envy as she strode across the town square. Not surprisingly, the few townfolk who dared to step out on the street, even in broad daylight, gave her a wide berth.

"Does she even know what she's doing, Mr. Elijah?"

Turning to leave the tower cupola, Elijah shrugged. "Who knows? When first I freed her in San Francisco, she claimed I was the incarnation of the Egyptian pharaoh Kha-Fu, sent to rescue her from spiritual bondage because she was an Immortal, cursed through eternity. When she first arrived here with me, she claimed Gomorra was the Land of Faerie that the wee ones had told her and her sister about back a few years ago in London. And yet, as far as I can tell, she had never been outside of San Francisco before I liberated her."

"She and others of the Seven are insane, my boy. I don't probe to deeply into their addled minds. As long as they serve myself and, ultimately, my Lord, they may think what they wish." }}