what the hell had happened. He knew that she lived on the eastern fringes of her town, at the foot of a particular hill. He wrote to the town’s police department, phrasing his letter very carefully and explaining that he was concerned for the safety of his friend and would appreciate news of her. Two weeks later, he received a reply. It thanked him for bringing their attention to the fact that Beatrice seemed to be missing and regretted to inform him that his friend was dead. They also said that they would be sending two of their officers to see him and they’d appreciate it if he would answer some questions about his relationship with her. Bob was stunned. What the hell could have happened? How was his relationship with her relevant?
He would find out in due course, but nothing he’d imagined would be close to what the police had found when, getting no replies to their knocking on Beatrice’s door, they’d forced the lock and gone inside. The smell immediately told them what to expect, but not the full extent of it. In the dining room, the computer was sitting on the table, its screen still flickering, a chair in front of it. The table all round it was thick with dried blood, blood which had spilled onto the floor and all over the chair. On and around the chair were bones, rags of flesh and a woman’s clothes. And, in the middle of it all sat a tiny kitten, with two white paws and a perfect diamond of white fur between her eyes.
15 the princess
Extremes such as that which befell Beatrice were rare, but in a way, there were even worse stories – not stories of gore and horror, but stories of quiet despair. In the life of Rhona Pearl, for example, romance was an unknown word – and concept. She lived in a flat in a tenement building. It had four rooms: one bedroom for her, another for her two kids, a cupboard-sized bathroom and the fourth for everything else. Her husband had left her the previous July, when she told him of her second pregnancy and, since then, she’d hardly been outside the flat, except for necessary journeys to buy food and, in charity shops, clothes for the kids. In some ways, this was a bonus. It meant she didn’t have to wear make-up or buy clothes for herself, which she couldn’t afford anyway. While the kids were awake, she fed them, played and watched TV with them and sometimes looked out of the window at the rows of flats in the buildings across the street. But when she’d got them to bed and eaten a quick snack, she switched on the computer which her husband had left ‘for the kids’ and became a princess.
Because Rhona was also Angeldust Starshine, concubine of Tristan Malevolans, who was ruler of the entire Alternative Dimension enclosure of StormFront and commander of two battalions of Borgian Exterminators. She didn’t know Tristan’s real name. She knew he had lots of money because he’d bought his enclosure and even offered to buy one for her but, beyond that and the fact that he gave every impression of having an IQ in single figures, he was an enigma. In fact, he’d chosen the name Tristan because his real name was Stanley and Malevolans because he thought it sounded like a cool make of car – a Mazerati Malevolans maybe.
They’d met when he and a small patrol of Exterminators had marched into a ballroom by a moonlit lake. Their intention had been to rape and pillage but every time they tried to steal something, they couldn’t because the ‘Steal’ level on their Acquire Column was greyed out and whenever they tried to rip the clothes off a woman, she translocated somewhere else. When they tried it on Rhona, she stood her ground and refused to sit on the rape action hooks they’d brought with them. Tristan had also been impressed and intrigued by her use of so many words with more than one syllable. They’d talked, he’d taken her back to StormFront and they’d made love in more ways than Tristan knew were possible, mainly
He would find out in due course, but nothing he’d imagined would be close to what the police had found when, getting no replies to their knocking on Beatrice’s door, they’d forced the lock and gone inside. The smell immediately told them what to expect, but not the full extent of it. In the dining room, the computer was sitting on the table, its screen still flickering, a chair in front of it. The table all round it was thick with dried blood, blood which had spilled onto the floor and all over the chair. On and around the chair were bones, rags of flesh and a woman’s clothes. And, in the middle of it all sat a tiny kitten, with two white paws and a perfect diamond of white fur between her eyes.
15 the princess
Extremes such as that which befell Beatrice were rare, but in a way, there were even worse stories – not stories of gore and horror, but stories of quiet despair. In the life of Rhona Pearl, for example, romance was an unknown word – and concept. She lived in a flat in a tenement building. It had four rooms: one bedroom for her, another for her two kids, a cupboard-sized bathroom and the fourth for everything else. Her husband had left her the previous July, when she told him of her second pregnancy and, since then, she’d hardly been outside the flat, except for necessary journeys to buy food and, in charity shops, clothes for the kids. In some ways, this was a bonus. It meant she didn’t have to wear make-up or buy clothes for herself, which she couldn’t afford anyway. While the kids were awake, she fed them, played and watched TV with them and sometimes looked out of the window at the rows of flats in the buildings across the street. But when she’d got them to bed and eaten a quick snack, she switched on the computer which her husband had left ‘for the kids’ and became a princess.
Because Rhona was also Angeldust Starshine, concubine of Tristan Malevolans, who was ruler of the entire Alternative Dimension enclosure of StormFront and commander of two battalions of Borgian Exterminators. She didn’t know Tristan’s real name. She knew he had lots of money because he’d bought his enclosure and even offered to buy one for her but, beyond that and the fact that he gave every impression of having an IQ in single figures, he was an enigma. In fact, he’d chosen the name Tristan because his real name was Stanley and Malevolans because he thought it sounded like a cool make of car – a Mazerati Malevolans maybe.
They’d met when he and a small patrol of Exterminators had marched into a ballroom by a moonlit lake. Their intention had been to rape and pillage but every time they tried to steal something, they couldn’t because the ‘Steal’ level on their Acquire Column was greyed out and whenever they tried to rip the clothes off a woman, she translocated somewhere else. When they tried it on Rhona, she stood her ground and refused to sit on the rape action hooks they’d brought with them. Tristan had also been impressed and intrigued by her use of so many words with more than one syllable. They’d talked, he’d taken her back to StormFront and they’d made love in more ways than Tristan knew were possible, mainly
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