“Silly Violet” the girl thought. “She thinks she can suffocate me. Does she not know that, for me, the intake of oxygen irrelevant.”
Being unable to see or hear the beast felt like a considerable risk. At least the professor had said so several times. In the silent darkness, Violet felt safe. She could not tell exactly where the beast was or what it was doing. She could sense its presence and she could feel her own anger rising.
The beast was becoming a little concerned. It knew following Violet was a trap, but it suffered not even the slightest amount of uncertainty. It had defeated Violet once and was sure she would not beg for her life or come crawling back. That left only a final futile attack. After the unusual nature of Violet’s first strike, the beast was less secure and decided not to take any chances. Ripping open its petticoats, it allowed its tentacles to creep out into the darkness. It felt something move passed a tentacle. The movement was quick, causing a breeze and leaving a sting. The tentacle sought out the movement and encountered a biting pain. A searing pain cut into the tentacle and would not disengage. The pain cut deeper and deeper into the tentacle until the end of the tentacle thudded to the ground. Violet felt her blade break free of the flesh having cut all the way through. Violet smiled in the darkness. The rotating blades, despite being cumbersome and unwieldy, had worked. That was all Violet needed to know.
She turned in the direction of the creature and screamed, charging as fast as she could towards where she imaged the beast was standing. The beast froze in a combination of surprise and fear. One blade dug into the creature’s thigh and began cutting through flesh and into bone. The other blade hit its stomach at a forty-five degree downward angle. Violet kept pushing forward, causing the beast to fall back against the wall of the narrow courtyard leaving no means of escape.
Violet could feel the beast shrieking in her mind. She closed out the taut feeling attempting to crush her mind and pushed her blades on as they whirled through the ever increasing flesh spewed forth by the abyss of her stomach. Endeavouring to stop or at least resist the rotating blades, the beast was disgorging all its tentacles.
Violet’s strength was beginning to weaken. She knew she could not last much longer. With one last thrust, Violet drove her weight behind the blades. They juddered for a moment, the rotation of the blades slowed as they were required to cut harder and faster. Then they resumed. If they could just hold out a little longer. The first blade severed the beast’s leg and hit the wall.
“You half-breed slut” the beast’s mind screeched. “You’re not us, not human. You’re nothing.”
Violet plunged the other blade deeper into the creature’s stomach. It let out one final mental scream before the blade halted against the wall. Violet dropped to her knees, her blades still biting into the brick wall.
Violet pulled her blades from the wall, slipping backwards in the slimy mess that had once taken the shape of a nymph like girl. Dragging her blades behind her, barely able to lift her arms, Violet staggered towards the exit to the courtyard.
“I fight for my humanity” Violet said out loud. “And to get it, I’m going to send everyone of you monsters back to hell.”
Shock to the Corset
T.W. Garland
Violet Reincastle followed the hooded-figure from the notorious highways of London into the cloisters of the cathedral district, and could feel that something was very wrong. Violet knew all about things being very wrong.
Working as a lady of the night on the Ratcliffe Highway and suffering the indignation of having her life made worthless by subjugating herself to the desires of others, merely to survive, was very wrong.
Being attacked by a mutated creature that slithered from the depths of the dirty Thames was very wrong. Having her humanity destroyed and left cursed to hear the echoes of so many victims of so many monsters was very, very wrong.
Now she chased the echoes of victim’s screams as they had their bodies torn away and possessed by the tentacled creatures. Now she hunted night after night for the beasts, trying to stop them before they could spread their terrible seed to men unable to control their urges. Urges that led to back alleys and the surprise ripping away of the filthy facade of London whores with razor sharp claws slicing through stolen skins to reveal the horror of tentacled monsters.
Now it was her job to send the beasts back to the slimy depths from which they had sprung, and that was the only aspect of her life that Violet did not consider wrong.
But now, chasing after the hooded-figure, she felt very wrong once again.
It had begun as an apparently simple hunt. The scream of the latest victim had been louder than most and shaken Violet from her sleep with a force she had not previously known. Violet was instantly awakened with a clear image of the girl and her location. Rousing a servant to wake the professor and lift him from his bed into his wheelchair, Violet pursued her morning consultation with the professor considerably earlier than normal.
“This is unusual,” the professor said shifting awkwardly in his dressing gown. The ceremony of breakfast that normally provided a familiar routine for Violet and the professor was missing. The professor, an almost compulsive tea drinker, was uncertain what to do with his one functioning hand. He placed it on his withered knee. “You are not usually provoked into action so soon.”
“I know,” Violet replied. “But I will forgo the comforts of breakfast if there is a chance that I could save one of them before the transformation.” The professor looked at her dubiously.
“You know I have always admired your commitment and tenacity, but it might be presumptive to assume that an opportunity to rescue this one exists.” Violet knew all too well that the mortality rate of those attacked by the tentacled creatures was worse than an Abram Cove on a snowy night. Violet alone was the only survivor known to the professor and rescuing Violet had come at a high price, costing the professor both his legs and one arm and leaving Violet irrevocably altered.
Since her first experience with the creatures, Violet had been transformed. Her body was left scarred, the very flesh of her abdomen a distorted aberration that was only held in place by a leather corset. The professor had initially designed the corset to provide her with a level of dignity and humanity that the creatures had sought to rip from her, but it soon became part of her armor and arsenal. She was left with the curse of feeling the creatures once they transformed into the bodies of the young whores they encountered as they slithered from the slimy Thames. At first, Violet’s sleep was plagued by nightmares of such dreadful mutilations she had slipped close to hysteria. With the professor’s help, she had trained herself to use the sensations as an asset in her crusade against the creatures that destroyed the lives of her, the professor and countless young whores who suffered pain, torment and death so the creatures could spread their seed.
While hunting, Violet was alert to a disguised monster in the vicinity by a rotting stench so intense it sent tremors through her muscles and crept through the back of her head. Mere proximity to a beast would cause Violet to contract into a tautness that readied her body and sharpened her senses. The professor’s explanation of her ability referred to her interception of the creature’s telepathic communication, but how it worked was immaterial to Violet. Combined with her revenge, her ability to detect the otherwise disguised horrors made her a proficient hunter and destructive force.
“Have you any awareness of this creature?” the professor asked suddenly aware they had both descended into reverie.
“No,” Violet replied, aware that the absence would hinder her hunt. “But I received a very clear image of a dollymop in Cheapside. I think she was near Newgate Street.”
“It is possible that your inability to sense her means that she has not yet been transformed,” the professor said reassuringly.
“I agree.” Violet interrupted.
“But,” the professor continued. “These creatures treat evolution with a malicious inclination for retribution. Their ability to communi
cate from one generation to the next effectively makes them travellers through time and masters of their own lineage.” Violet felt as though she was receiving a lecture by her father. Not that she had ever known her father…
“Do not rush too quickly into this.” The professor placed his hand on Violet’s gloved hands. “It would, however, seem prudent to make haste.”
Moments later, Violet was in her carriage travelling towards the Ratcliffe Highway and the ten miles of prostitution that ran along the Thames and had been the main hunting and killing ground of the monsters. Having given the driver directions to the dollymop’s location, Violet sat back and attempted to focus on detecting the presence of the creature. Knowing that by the time she could sense the creature, it was too late for the victim, Violet half hoped the feeling would not emerge.
The driver stopped, unsure whether he had missed Violet’s instructions. It was not yet dawn and Swanson was used to staying up late, not getting up early. Swanson had been hired specifically because he could handle the brougham carriage with a skill far exceeding the ordinary Hackney cab driver. Following specific directions was confusingly straightforward.
“Ma’am?” Swanson asked.
“Nothing yet. Drive on Swanson.”
“Which way ma’am? We are heading away from the Thames. Do you want me to head towards the Haymarket?” Swanson was familiar with the patterns of Violet’s hunt and the connection between her nocturnal activities and the areas of the city that constituted the highest proportion of prostitution in the entire world.
“Head down Newgate Street,” Violet told him.
Swanson resumed his seat on the brougham and softly snapped the reins. As the carriage took to Newgate Street, Violet got her first sense of the beast before being beset with a hissing noise that caused her to wince. The noise buzzed through her head. Violet considered consulting the professor until she remembered the life of the girl at stake. Unable to shake the noise, Violet reasoned it could be the monster’s latest evolution horror; a telepathically induced pain to deter her from approaching. With that, and an increasing discomfort in mind, Violet used the pain to provide Swanson with directions.
The noise intensified as Swanson pulled the carriage to a halt.
Standing transfixed in the middle of the highway was the dollymop from Violet’s vision. Violet hoped that the creature had put the girl into a trance, except the monsters took girls near the river, not this far north. The monsters were more violent, treating the girls roughly, and if anything, inflicting pain with a joyful relish. Violet had never seen a monster hypnotize a victim before it destroyed the victim’s body and took the victim’s shape. Violet had seen creatures in the shape of innocent dollymops transfixed in such a state while passing on information from one generation to the next. For the monster, it was a moment of weakness, which had given Violet good opportunity to strike. This time Violet was more annoyed than most.
It struck Swanson as strange that the dollymop should be standing in the middle of the street, but Violet did not offer comments when he was driving and he did not offer comments when they arrived. Swanson liked to remain securely in his seat where he kept the cavalry sabre his father had brought back from the Crimean War.
Violet dismounted, her deep blue, duchess gown a tribute to function hidden by ornament. Walking towards the girl, her gaze fixed on her, looking for the slightest movement, Violet began to unbutton her jacket and high-collared shirt from the waist up to reveal her leather corset encased in a cage of silver throwing knives.
Next, Violet reached back towards her bustle. She lifted the ruffled material adoring the top of her skirt, which folded purposefully and provided her with access inside. Measuring her pace carefully and maintaining her fixed gaze on the girl, Violet slid her hands down into the two the leather gauntlets hidden within the bustle. She gripped the cold mushroom shaped handles inside and slowly and silently withdrew two flat blades. As she continued walking silently towards her prey, hands held in readiness by her side, the blades reached down to the ground.
Violet had exited the carriage looking like a mid-Victorian woman on a mission of mercy to help the less fortunate, but had quickly become a storm on the horizon; inevitable, and incapable of mercy.
Violet paused, blades poised. The girl had not moved and the hissing sound in Violet’s ears had not abated. A measure of doubt infiltrated Violet’s thoughts. What was she waiting for? By all accounts she should strike the girl down while she was incapacitated and in other situations, Violet had done just that without a moment’s hesitation.
Hesitating in a moment of uncertainty, the hissing noise halted and Violet was beset by the ungodly stench and the sensation that crept up her spine and gripped the back of her head propelling her muscles into readiness. The girl spun suddenly round to face Violet wearing an expression of astonished hatred.
Instinctively, Violet’s blades shot forward. She swung one blade high and in front of the girl, slicing across her stomach to reveal tentacles and beast hiding within. Violet’s other blade swung low and up, piercing a weak spot in the creature’s side where its kidneys would have been if it had not been an inhuman monster. The two blades worked in tandem intentionally eviscerating the creature, breaching its disguise and exposing an ashen flesh as the dollymop’s skin stretched across the expanding monstrosity underneath. The girl’s frame grew flaccid as a veneer of spikes and profusion of tentacles were exposed.
The release of tentacles provided Violet with the opportunity she needed. She stepped to the side and used her broad blades to slice the tentacles away before twisting in front of the creature and plunging her blades deep into the creature’s body. Violet looked into the monster’s ugly countenance and with a satisfied smile waited for the satisfying sound of splattering on the cobbles.
As Violet withdrew her blades from the disintegrating body, they clinked together which caused an unexpected jolt that forcefully pushed Violet backwards.
Violet pulled herself to her feet and readied her blades for an attack that never came. After a moment, she tentatively examined the creature’s remains. The girl was long gone and in her place was a gelatinous mass of what could only be described as partially cooked fish guts. The first unusual aspect was the creature had not swiftly disintegrated into a brown sludge. The second was the charred appearance of the remains. The one conclusion that was without doubt was the creature, despite its failure to disintegrate, was dead before Violet arrived. The vivid vision, Violet reasoned to herself, must have been the creature’s death and not its creation. But how had the creature been killed without piercing its skin?
The light of dawn was attempting to clear the fog filled roads. Violet looked around, unsure of what she should do next. In the shadows of early light, Violet spotted a hooded figure. She strained her eyes to distinguish the figure from the murky darkness of the alley. The figure shifted apprehensively before jolting into movement. Violet followed.
It had been impulse to follow the hooded figure; Violet usually followed vivid flashes of memory. But the hooded figure was not one of the monsters she usually hunted—its appearance however, at the scene of such an unusual hunt was no coincidence.
Violet was light on her feet, despite the apparent encumbrances of dress, armory and low heeled laced ankle boots. But the figure managed to stay just a few steps ahead, twisting and turning down a succession of narrow roads and neglected alleys. It was only when Violet emerged into a cloister surrounding a church courtyard that Violet’s feeling of unease became an understanding that she had been driven into a trap. The entrance behind her was closed. A large statue of a praying angel stood in a slow flowing fountain at the center of the courtyard.
The hooded figure stood facing Violet. She knew it was not one of the tentacled creatures even though the cloak hid the figure’s identity. There was a way to remedy that. Blades still in hand, Violet sliced two diagonal lines just under the figure’s neck. The figure did not move and when the cloak fell away, a boy of
barely ten years old was left wearing a white cassock, high starched collar and long black robe.
“Please forgive me” the boy said, taking hold of Violet’s blades and sending a jolt through them that reverberated around the knives in her corset and threw her against the wall of the cloister. Everything went dark.
Violet was awoken with a splash of water in her face. At least she hoped it was water.
“This ain’t no doss house luvie,” a loud and raucous voice told her. “We don’t allow no straw bathing ’ere.”
Violet was slumped over a rough table. The wood was pitted and scored from regular abuse and permeated with a soft, sticky wetness. The noise buzzing through her head was matched by the noise of the gin-shop. The discordant thumping of the ruined piano in the corner of the saloon aggravated the pulsing in her head. Violet felt like she had spent a year’s wages and a week in the gin shop.
“Want anuver dram dearie?” asked the landlady who had provided Violet with her curtsey drink. “Penny a dram for the finest Madam Geneva you ever ’ad.”
“Where am I?” Violet asked looking around at the spluttering gas lamps and the abundance of flaking gilding.
“Oh luvie, you must ’ave ’ad quite a few. You is in the Lost Guinea, finest gin palace this side of St. Giles’s.”
Violet got to her feet unsteadily. Instinctively, she checked her blades. They were both securely holstered in her bustle. Violet stood up, unsteady on her feet. The barmaid watched her as she staggered to the door and looked up and down the street for a carriage.
Both Barrels of Monster Hunter Legends (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 1) Page 47