Portraiture

         Iris hung there, dangling from a bridge made of souls, wondering how the hell her week had gone downhill so fast.  Monday, she was in Art History, listening to Professor Know-it-all talk about shit she already knew.  Tuesday, she was tearing her way out of an ectoplasmic sack.
         Iris gathered all the strength that was left in her soul and pulled herself up.  Swinging a leg over the rail she was safe again, at least for now.  The Renegades would be back shortly enough.  She spat on the ground in disgust.
         Oh come on, baby.  Those are your people.
         “Shut the fuck up Shadow.”  How strange that she now used the word so easily when only a few short days ago the thought of an evil version of herself living in her head seemed so odd.

         “We all have them here,” Thomas had said.  Thomas was the man who found her, laying there in a puddle of raw nether.  He was an old man with kind eyes and a deep baritone voice.  He helped her up, and taught her the ways of the empire of the dead.

         “Dead.  It's still hard to believe.”  Iris looked around the bleak urban landscape, the sky was choked by a thick fog and skyscrapers rotted away, this world was merely a necrotic shadow of the 'real' world. Iris made sure the coast was clear before slinking off to a dark alley.
         “In life, alleys are dangerous, but here they seem to be my best friend.”
         Thus is the pampered life of a suburban punk, darling.
         Without thinking Iris swung her fist straight into her temple, trying to get him out.  The throbbing immediately made her regret her decision.
         “If you keep it up with the condescending Machismo bullshit, I'll find the closest lantern around and force you to shut up.”
         Eh-ah-easy there, cupcake-... Alright, I'll play nice for a bit.
         That was one of the first things that Thomas had taught her.  A mouthy shadow means bad things for a ghost.  Iris stood there, huddled behind a rusted fire escape thinking about the old man who had done so much for her.  She had been lucky, not all of the newly dead are found by old ghosts with compassion.
         “Focus!” Iris had to keep herself in line.  There were three thugs out there looking for her and she had no idea why.  They already killed Thomas.
         “Killed?”  She didn't think the word worked well. Considering they were all dead already, but it still wasn't a pretty sight watching him get ripped to pieces.

         Three men stood in the doorway of the modest room Thomas kept for himself.  The largest of them, obviously their leader, stood leaning against the wall waiting for something to happen.  Another one, with pale eyes that shone green, stood in the doorway with his arms stretched up over his head hanging from the door jam.  The last of them stood silently chuckling to himself, as if the world in his head were far more amusing then the one he was presently in.  They looked like the three stooges to Iris, so she decided to call them Moe, Larry, and Curly, respectively.  She didn't understand why Thomas was so stressed by these three, but he knew more than her and, against her best wishes she hid as the old man had asked.
         Moe spoke first, “So where is the new artifact Tommy boy?”
         “I don't know what you're talking about.  I already gave you guys the artifacts I found.”
         Larry spoke up, “I saw new ones here.  New ones.  They called to me.”  He pointed to his emerald eyes as he finished his sentence.
         Moe sighed, “I really wish you would cooperate.”
         Iris peered through the broken closet door.  She could tell Thomas was becoming nervous, though he never let it show to the others.
         “Ok then, we'll do this the hard way,” Moe said with another sigh.
         Curly stopped giggling and looked at Moe with a knowing smile.  He inhaled deeply, as a child might before beginning to blow out their birthday candles.  The Renegade's scream was the violent rage of every abusive husband, father, boyfriend, and teacher of all time channeled into one noise. A noise so powerful that even though Iris was hiding in the closet with her hands over her ears she still felt the pain in the pit of her stomach.  Thomas wasn't so lucky, he caught the full force of the screech and had his spectral flesh ripped from his body. It was like watching curtains burn without the flame.  First he was complete, then he was wisps of ash, and then he was gone.

         “But why?  Why him, why then?  And what did they say about an artifact?  And what the fuck is an artifact?!”  Iris sat there, alone and confused, wishing with her entire being that she was back in her dorm at the university.  But she knew that would never be, that drunk driver had made sure of that.

         “Ok, focus.  Remember what the old man taught you.”  Iris sat there and put her hands over her face.  She then began to push and pull on her features, reforming them.  Iris had learned that all the Restless Dead are made of plasm.  Plasm that can be shaped and formed by someone with the right skills.  Thomas has taught her those skills and now they were going to help save her 'life.'
         “Thank you again, old man,” Iris said as she pulled her hands away from her face, revealing a completely different person.  Her usually angular features were now more rounded, her lips were fuller, and her pock marked complexion was smoother.
         “I could get used to this,” Iris exclaimed in girlish glee as she ran her hand over her face.

         Now that Iris' disguise was complete she walked out of the alley and slipped onto a nearby busy street.  The dead in this part of town tended to walk around in a mindless haze most of the time so Iris did her best to fit in while still maintaining an eye out for her pursuers.  When she was convinced she had lost them, she let herself relax.
         Can we play now, shnoukums?
         Ace again, laughing it up in the back of her skull.  She called him Ace because he reminded her of every sleazy gambler and conman back in Reno.  Every ounce of her hated him, but in a way he kept her on her toes. 
         An evil smirk played across her lips, “No, Ace. Not now,” she said in a mock playful tone.  “I have to find out why those guys are after me.”
         Ace began to chuckle, why don't you just ask them.
         Iris knew that sadistic tone well and wheeled around to find herself surrounded by Larry, Moe, and Curly.  For a moment Iris forgot she didn't look like herself anymore, and almost gave herself away.  Luckily, she caught herself in time and put on the punk-rock Renegade face.
         “Nice try little girl,” said the biggest one.  “We know who you are.  You're Thomas' little friend, and you have something we want.”
         Iris' mind starting running through lists of what it could be.  Thomas hadn't given her anything and all she had were some left over things from when she was killed.  Paintbrushes, boot-knife, clothes, nothing worth having.
         “What?  What do you want?  I don't have anything.”
         “Oh, we beg to differ,” said Larry, with his eyes glowing with an eerie green light.  “I can see it on you.  It's power calls to us.”
         “Just give us the artifact, and we'll leave you alone.” Moe spoke again, and even if Iris knew what the hell they were talking about, she still wouldn't  have believed him.  His tone belied his killer intent, even if his words were candy-coated.
         Iris again called upon her ability to shape her own flesh, causing a series of razored spikes to grow from her arms and hands.  “No.  And I don't suggest you try and take it by force.”
         Iris' quick reflexes were the only thing that kept her from meeting the same fate as Thomas.  She heard Curly, who had remained silent so far, inhale deeply.  Iris immediately threw  herself behind a wall, letting the force of the wail be absorbed by the plaster.
         In a second Moe was on top of her, pummeling her into the pavement.  She managed to get her arms up after the first few blows to the gut, and heard the wraith howl in pain as his fist met with the razors on Iris' skin.
         Iris took the opportunity to swing out at the Renegade's face, slicing a bit of his corpus from his frame.  She threw him off of her and drew her boot-knife.
         Brandishing the knife she stood there in the dark alley surrounded by three hostile enemies, wondering what her next move should be.  She didn't have long to think as Larry threw himself onto her, shoving her arms into her chest.  The pain burned through her like wildfire as her own serrated flesh tore though her body.
         Iris struggled against the hold, violently throwing herself from side to side.  In her frantic plight to get free she dropped her boot-knife, and as it skittered across the ground Iris cursed to herself.
         As the pain coursed through her body, she frantically fought to break free, which only served to cause the barbs to sink deeper into her skin.  She reached into her pocket searching for anything that could help her, and pulled out one of her paintbrushes.  Pissed over not finding anything useful, she threw the brush from her hand.
         As the brush soared through the air it passed through the ghostly form of her captor.  The brush, upon reaching the body of Larry, sliced through his form as if it were a scalpel.  The wraith's scream was deafening, and he immediately released his hold on Iris and sprinted as fast as he could out of the alley.
         Iris bent over and picked up the brush with a confused look on her face.
         “How the hell did that happen?”  She wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth however.  She stood there, her wounds oozing nether, and tried to wield her paintbrush in the most threatening manner possible.  If the Renegade's hadn't seen the brush's power, they probably would have laughed at the sight of a five foot nothing girl brandishing a paintbrush.  However, the thought of their friend, now missing a large chunk of his body, flashed through their mind and they booked out of that alley as quick as they had come.

         Iris sat in the corner of Thomas' place, staring at her three paintbrushes that she had laid out in front of her.  Her mind was still reeling from the incident in the alley.
         “How the hell could a paintbrush do that to his body when the knife barely did anything?”  Iris picked up one of the two brushes whose effect she didn't know yet.  She spun it around examining it, hoping to glean some information from it's markings.
         There is always one way to find out what it does.  Ace said with a chuckle.
         “You're fucked up...but you're right.”  Iris winced as she ran the brush along her skin, fearing the worst.  After a moment she opened her eyes.
         “Nothing.”  Iris sighed and stared at the brush.  “Maybe it's just the one?”  Iris lost herself in a reverie, going over all that had happened to her.
         “It all started at the Alpha Delta Epsilon party, when half the campus decided to get completely trashed.  I should have known better to walk home on the side of the road.  Last mistake I got to make.”
         Iris began idly rubbing the brush on her face while she though out loud to herself, feeling the soft synthetic fibers gently caress her skin.  As a painter, she found the effect soothing.  It reminded her of when she would spend all day in the studio painting, not worrying about the outside world.  She felt as if everything was going to be ok, the pain of her wounds seemed to disappear as she passed the brush over them.
         Iris looked down at her chest where she had torn her skin apart earlier.  No single wound remained.
         “It must be the brush!” She jumped up out of the bed.  “Ace, I need your help.”
         It's going to cost you Sugar, you know that.
         “Whatever.  How do these things work?”
         You really are green as hell, you know that?  Its called an artifact.  Any item that had exceptional emotion tied to it in the skinlands can become one, and they often have special powers.  You must have been one big art-fag to have a paintbrush become one.  So is that it, you like the ladies?  Is that why you're so cold with me?
         “That's enough Ace.”  Iris sat there and stared at the brushes, trying to think of what the last one could do.  “One hurts, one heals.  What could the other one do?”
         Iris suddenly remembered a story from her childhood.  A story that sparked her love of painting, a story of a boy with a magical paintbrush.  A sly grin crawled across Iris' face as she realized the brush's potential.
         “Fuck castles!  I have a better idea.”

         Iris stepped back from the wall of Thomas' place and surveyed what she had done.  There, painted on the wall, was a life-sized portrait of the old man that had come to mean so much to Iris now.
         “Not perfect, but hopefully you won't mind the alterations.”
         Iris stepped forward and painted the last stroke of the painting.
         She stepped back and smiled.
         “Welcome home old man.”