The Assassin's Tale; The Gothic Quarter

Credits; Krell, Rea,

Rea was in a bit of a hurry to get them away from Courtney's palace.  However, judging by the view now that they were outside, she'd taken them out a side door or a secret passage.  He looked up at the tower; clouds obscured the highest levels, but based on the curvature of the walls he'd guess it went up as much over the clouds as it did under them. 
Of course, the clouds were magical.  The entire station was throbbing with it.  Tala had created the tower on a small space station, not much more than a small mining platform at the time.  She'd captured the winds of a thousand dying worlds and the fiercest storms of the universe and set them about her little fortress like a cloak.  She'd done a lot of work on it, and Stormguard had grown to the size of a large battleship by the time that the Yellsdana had moved in.  As Rea lead him by the hand through the streets he could see the darker streets and classical archeitecture that vampires prefered.  A few weaker, poorer residents went about in suit and tye attending to the needs of their masters.  He could spot the strangely named merchants; Vlad's Plaids, The Twice Struck Stake, and Bella's Pyre, even through the dim gas lamplight.  It was like a whole new, yet very old, world. 
"Mistress, all of your belongings were moved to the Gravagan district."  One rather stocky young woman had approached and was adressing Rea from a low curtsey.  He'd never really considered it before, but Rea almost certainly had a proper home of her own.
"Liss, go get dinner started.  Krell and I will be back in time for it, but I think we'll have lunch out here."
The servant walked off quickly.  Rea had servants then.  It didn't really surprise him, most immortals had them best as he could tell.  After all, no immortal owned only one house, and they rarely bothered to maintain there own home.  It was strange, considering that Rea had admitted to spending most of her time living with the Von Gravagas, who as best as he could tell did not have servants.  And yet here she was with her own place and servants. 
"Nice girl, so glad when she got turned.  She does a lot of the more advance work, teleporting guest's belongings and running errands."
"What?"
"You weren't staring at her scar were you?  It's not polite you know."
"What scar?  Rea, who exactly was that girl?"
Rea backed up a little and looked him over.  "Who do you think that was?"
"Your steward or local property manager, some sort of employee."
Rea laughed and vanished for a second.  She reappeared coming through the crowd dragging the poor girl along with her.  By the pained grimmace of the other girl., she was gripping the other girl's arm much harder than she realized. 
"Liss, tell Krell what you are?"
"I'm her Ladyship's handmaid sir."  Liss was timid apparently.  An attractive trait in a servant maybe, but it did make her hard to talk to.  She replied quietly, and her answer didn't tell anyone anything they didn't already know.
"No" Rea replied a little more harshly, "Who do you serve, what are you, tell him about yourself."
The girl looked down and clasped her hands together as though she were praying. 
"Liss."
The girl looked at him, unblinking.  Then he noticed that blinking wasn't the only thing she wasn't doing.  She wasn't breathing.  And her eyes were glazed over like those of the dead. 
"I serve her Ladyship.  I am Liss.  I do what she tells me to do, and she takes care of me."
Even after centuries around the now fundamentally undead Daniellandish, Krell was still surprised when he realized that Liss was just a sort of golem.  A body with no soul and no mind beyond that it needed to do what it was told.  It certainly precluded any chances that Rea was the unnamed Lady.  The young assassin was many things, but a talented necromancer capable of creating a sophisticated golem was not one of them.  She was far more likely to have just bought a robot or simply done it herself. 
"Liss, tell him what you.."
"It's fine.  She's some sort of necromancy, that's all I need to know."  He remembered his training and turned to the unliving woman.  "Thank you for your assistance, you can return to your Lady and express to her our gratitude."  Liss bowed and walked away quietly.  Krell turned back to Rea.  He could tell she was having a bad day and decided to not point out how rude she'd been. 
"Courtney's?"
"Yes.  Liss was the daughter of one of her servants.  She got sick and was dying, so Courtney did what she could."
"And necromancy was a solution to being dead?"
"She's not...it's..Necromancy implies she was dead to start with.  She was just sick."
"Courtney killed her?"
"If you want to be blunt about it, yes.  A ghoul still retains most of its original personality when it's close to its master."
"A ghoul.  Being a soulless corpse that does someone's bidding is better than death?"
"Depends on who you ask.  Petra's told me what the middle plains are like; if you ask me it sounds like death isn't so bad."
"It's not about being dead, it's practically slavery."
"If you could have your wife back, but it meant you couldn't talk to her unless she was in the same house as..I dunno, Arcania, would you do it?"
"At the price of her soul and slavery?  No!"
"She's dead, the soul moved on.  She's wherever she was going.  But for her parents, it's almost like she's still there."
"As an eternal servant and a mockery of her former self."
"What do you have against allowing her parents a little comfort in their grief?"
"It's wrong."
"It's wrong to help them?"
"It's all wrong."
"You're impossible."
"And you're making excuses for evil."
Rea turned her back on him and started walking up the street.  Krell glanced around and realized that despite their having made what he expected was quite a scene, no one was watching.  He looked around and finally decided he really didn't have any choice but to follow her.  Besides being his ride, she was his only friend in the city.  And considering the dank, dark, gray stone alleys that seemed more numerous than shops and houses, he certainly didn't want to spend the night here.