MISNOMER

a "Daria" QuickFic by Erin Mills

"Wake up."

Jane sputtered as the bucket of cold water washed over her, shocking her out of her groggy rise to consciousness. She blinked a few times before she realized where she was; the dimly lit basement of Casa Lane. The only illumination was comng from a small kerosene lantern in the corner of the room.

Jane tried to raise a hand to her head, where there was pain and a persistent throbbing, but found she was unable to do so. She soon discovered the reason for this. She had been tied to a chair. The same chair Wind had been working on for their dad's birthday party tonight.

Jane's head snapped up as the memory of what had happened hit her. So did a large bolt of pain that caused her to wince and moan.

"Ah. So you remembered."

Jane forced her eyes back open, and noticed that she wasn't alone in the basement. Across the room, standing backlit by the glow from the lantern was a figure wearing, what looked to be a hooded floor length cloak. As the intruder moved their head, Jane cause flashes of reflected light near the eyes.

The figure crouched down so that it and Jane were on roughtly the same level. When it spoke again, Jane frowned. The voice was female and sounded familiar.

"I'm sorry I had to barge in on your dad's birthday party, Jane, but I'm under a tight schedule here."

Jane's brain threw up a blurred memory. The Lanes had gone into the dining room to celebrate Vincent's birthday and Penny's return from Peru on that university dig she was heading up. Penny had brought back a whole truckload of Incan artifacts from that dig. However, some of them hadn't really looked Incan to Jane. And Penny had been awfully cryptic about where she'd found them.

"It's amazing what the Incas had hidden in those temples." Penny had said. Then, Vincent had blown out the candles on the cake and then--

A flash of images rushed through Jane's mind. A figure crashing through the dining room window. Gunfire. Wind and Trent falling down, bleeding from holes in their heads. Summer and her kids running for the door, only to be cut down by a thunderous shotgun blast. Vincent diving in front of Amanda, and the cloaked figure that had burst through the window grabbing the ornamental tribal hunting spear that hung on the wall impaling both of them with it.

Jane remembered her own throat burning raw form the screaming she had done when her brothers had been slaughtered. The intruder had turned to her then, raised the shotgun, reversed it, and that was the last thing she remembered before waking up down here.

"Where-" She ventured, not wanting to piss off her captor anymore than it seemed she already was. "Where's Penny?"

The intruder sighed. "Yes...Penny. I'm really sorry about that, Jane, but Penny's been doing something she really shouldn't have." The figure turned, and incresed the flow of kerosine to the lamp. Whe she turned back, Jane saw that the cloak was blood red, and the woman, (which Jane was sure of thanks to the matte black catsuit the woman was wearing under the cloak) was holding a gold statuette with a large blue gem lodged in the center of it. The gem glowed oddly, with an inner light that had nothing to do with the reflection from the lantern.

The woman pulled over another chair and sat down, setting the statuette on her lap. "You see, Jane," she began, "While your sister was in Peru, she found this little knickknack and soon found out it could do more than look pretty.

"It opened a...doorway, shall we say, to a different place in the same space/time as the ruins she was visiting. Only in this other place, she found a mansion owned by a very wealthy gentleman. The gentleman's mansion was filled with exotic trinkets taken from places found through other doorways like the one Penny went through."

"So what?" Jane said. "I don't care about this shit. What did you do to my sister?"

Beneath the hood, the woman's mouth curled into a predatory grin. "Now, now. Don't interrupt me when I'm speaking to you. It's not polite, Jane. And I don't have a lot of paitence for impolite people." WIth this, the woman took her free hand, felt inside her cloak, then removed it, revealing the small caliber pistol she had retrieved.

She then shot Jane's kneecaps off.

"FUUUUUUUUCK!" Jane cried, as the searing pain blazed from her non existant knees and into her brain. "YOU SICK, TWISTED--"

The woman cocked the hammer on the gun. "Ah, ah." she said with the grin still on her face.

Jane took the hint and swallowed her curses. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. The woman nodded and replaced the gun inside her cloak.

"As I was saying, this is relevant, Jane, because your sister, rather than robbing graves like any normal archaeologist, decided to cut out the middleman and rob this wealthy gentleman."

"So what?" Jane repeated through clenched teeth. "Sounds liek the guy was doing the same thing Penny was. Bug fucking deal."

The woman inclined her head, as if to acknowledge Jane's point. "Perhaps, but here's the main problem, Jane. The gentleman in question is the one who is paying me a considerable sum to make sure that Penny doesn't do it again."

"And killing my entire family accomplishes that how, exactly?" Jane demanded. "Why don't you just take the fucking trinket and leave us the hell alone!"

"Well, primarily because my employer doesn't know whether or not Penny told any of you about her discovery. Blood tells, you know, so he asked me to make sure she hadn't told anyone."

"She didn't! Now untie me and let us go! I swear I won't call the cops or anything."

"Well, that's the problem, Jane." the woman said, standing up and hiding the statuette in her cloak. "Even though I believe you and believe she didn't tell anyone anything about the 'fucking trinket,' we';re kind of at an impasse."

"What impasse?" Jane said. She felt lightheaded. No doubt it was due to the blood loss. Jane's legs felt drenched in it. SHe was trying to keep her anger up so that she didn't have to think about it and possibly throw up.

"Well, for one thing, my employer demanded your sister's head on a silver platter--" At this point, the woman stood aside and Jane had no choice but to throw up.

Penny's severed head, frozen with a look of horror on it's face, was sitting on the formal serving platter her mom used for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It sat on a bed of romaine lettuce and had an apple in it's mouth.

The assassin waited politely until Jane had emptied her stomach. Then she knelt down next to her captive and wiped Jane's mout with a rag that wa snearby. "Better?"

Jane responded by headbutting her captor. The woman topped over backward, yelping in surprise, the hood of her cloak falling away. She scrabbled to her hands and knees and mule kicked Jane with her right leg. The heel of the woman's boot slammed into the open wound marking where Jane's left knee had been. Jane screamed in pain again and toppled over onto her back. The chair was sturdy and the ropes tight, so Jane was left quite helpless in this position.

The woman got to her feet and towered over Jane. "Resourceful. I can appreciate that, under the circumstances. But here's where we hit our other little snag, Jane. Even if Penny hadn't told you what the trinket does, I just did. And I can't leave you here with that knowledge."

The woman reached down, grabbed the front of Jane's shirt and pulled her upright. As she did so, Jane finally got a clear look at her captor, and her jaw dropped in shock.

"Daria...?" she whispered.

Daria frowned, then her expression turned to sadness. "I'm sorry, Jane." The next thing Jane knew, Daria was kissing her full on the mouth. Her jaw was still slack and her brain overloaded as she felt Daria's tongue playing with her own.

Daria finally broke the kiss, and stepped back, her hands hidden under her cloak again. "But, my name isn't Daria."

Her hands reappeared, holding the shotgun which has massacred Courtney, Adrian, and Summer. Jane stared down the barrels, then up at Daria, who's face had become hard and cold.

"My name is Judith."

The explosion reverberated around the basement.

***

Upstairs, the front door to the Lane house opened, and Daria Morgendorffer peered inside. "Hello? Jane? Trent? Mr. and Mrs. Lane? Anyone?"

Downstairs, Judith heard Daria's call...and grinned. Well, well, a paying job completed, and the head of a Green Jacketed Snot Nosed Bitch for the trophy room in the bargain. Almost made up for having to kill Jane...again.

Judith reached for the silver heart shaped locket around her throat. It glowed blue for a moment, and a similar glow appeared in her eyes. She was going to enjoy this.

***

The news of the massacre at the Lane house reported a total of 11 bodies; Vincent and Amanda Lane, and their children, Summer, Penny, Wind, Trenton, and Jane. The bodies of Katie Brownstone-Lane, Wind's wife, and Daria Judith Morgendorffer, Jane's best friend were also found at the scene. Curiously enough, the body of Penny Lane was missing it's head, and was only identified through fingerprint records.

While several neighbors reported the commotion and gunfire at the Lane household, no one remembered seeing anyone leave the Lane house that night. Intial police belief was that one or more members of the household went on a homicidal rampage before killing themselves.

However, police were unable to find any firearms in the Lane house, nor any powder burns on the bodies.

The case remains unsolved.