“Poor darling,” the woman said to herself before shouting at one of her barmaids to go easy on the pouring.
When Violet arrived at the professor’s house, it was dark and the shutters were closed. The door would not budge and there was no response to the bell. Violet considered heading down to the cellar entrance when Swanson pulled up in the brougham.
“Where is the professor?” Violet asked.
“I will take you to him,” Swanson replied.
“What happened? Why did he leave?” Violet asked.
“I will take you to him,” Swanson said opening the door. Violet climbed in and sat uncomfortably on the seat. The journey was familiar. Swanson was heading along the Ratcliffe Highway, through Whitechapel and Cheapside except his driving was distressingly unsteady. After Cheapside, Swanson swung the carriage round several streets with the ineptitude of a buck growler and he kept going towards St. Paul’s.
The carriage pulled up to a large wooden arched door set in a heavy stone frame. Violet was unsurprised to see a cleric wearing a long black cassock open the door. The discreet, plain brick wall could not disguise the sanctimonious piousness of the door’s grandeur. Violet found herself once again walking through cloisters and she did not feel more comfortable because she had been invited. The cleric opened a large oak door and stepped to the side to admit Violet. Inside was the young boy she had chased through the night. This time there was no hooded cloak.
The boy stood next to man of indeterminate age. His long black cassock was of a rich material and had been piped with amaranth. A precise string of buttons ran down the front of his robe giving the illusion of height. He wore a shoulder cape, enhancing his appearance of size and power, although Violet calculated that there was probably little muscle behind his shoulders. Most noticeable was his brilliant red sash that marked him as a cardinal. Violet’s previous life working the Ratcliffe Highway had provided her with some experience of high ranking clergy. They rarely did their own dirty work and while they might tell everyone else about their desire to save the unfortunates, when faced with an unfortunate individual, saving was not the desire they commonly expressed.
“My apologies, my child, for our conspiratorial machinations. We needed to be sure that you would not, albeit without malicious intent no doubt, interfere with our plans. I considered the gin palace to be a rather indecent location for such a person as yourself, but it was necessary to guarantee you were undisturbed by the undesirable factions you have fought against so valiantly. After everything you have done, we did not want you to come to any harm.”
“Where is the professor and what did you do to Swanson?” Violet was unimpressed with Cardinal Amaranth’s amicable attitude.
“Direct and commanding, just as I imagined you to be. I have not had the pleasure of watching your struggles, but I have received the most detailed accounts of your conflicts. It is an honor to be talking to you.” Cardinal Amaranth bowed slightly. “As you can imagine, we have followed your exploits with a great deal of interest. You have been so resourceful and determined in your quest against the beasts that…”
“Swanson. The professor,” Violet reminded.
“Yes.” Cardinal Amaranth was not accustomed to being interrupted. “Swanson. Well, we did not know where you or your eminent mentor resided. Finding you has been our priority and once we found you both, we knew that neither of you would visit us without a great deal of explanation. Sadly, we do not have time for explanations. It was essential that you come with an emissary familiar to you. Hence, your driver was necessary.”
“What did you do to him?”
“Your driver will be fine. He has been subjected to a process that is relatively harmless. As we speak he is being readjusted and shall be returned to you henceforth.”
“And the professor?”
“Yes. He is helping us.”
“Helping you?”
“Have you ever thought, my child, how the monsters came to be?”
“Not really,” Violet replied with indifference. “I am too busy killing them.”
“Yes, your exploits are known to us. It is through your feats of devastation that we became aware of the professor and ultimately, our connection to these abominations. For while we take no direct responsibility for bringing these monsters into the heart of this great city, it is in pursuit of us that these hideous creature crawled from their sludge filled mire to bring a blight upon the city.
“They were hunting you?”
“Of sorts, my child. You see, those monsters are our natural predators and we their natural sustenance. They hunted us before the great transmutation. No one is certain of exactly how it happened; All we know is from the records of the first great transmutator whom we praise for allowing us this great movement from the murky depths of the river to be able to survive and flourish on land. We are a simple species who exist in our seclusion exercising our wills to control those powers that exist within each of us. That was, until the tentacled ones arrived. Then the hiding began. Some of us were taken, and others lost as casualties in an ongoing resistance to the tentacled ones who seek to drain us of our very life force. Many have resisted valiantly, given their very lives to maintain our continued existence, but we cannot continue for much longer. Without us, they mutate further, becoming more dangerous.”
“You triggered their change?”
“We, of course, knew nothing of the havoc they were executing in our name. Now that your mentor, whom we praise as the great messiah, is among us, we have learnt so much, so quickly. It would seem that our divine transmutation began with electrogenic marine wildlife. It is the blessing of the great messiah that he, among all others, knows the physiology of these monsters, our electro-receptive brethren, who can sense us by nature of our gifts. It is the great messiah who can aid our escape from the curse that binds us to them. Did you not ever consider why the professor was out after those monsters when he happened upon you? How did he happen upon those creatures? Did he ever tell you?” Cardinal Amaranth paused. “He was looking for us my child, not for you. Fortunately we have found him and brought him into our fold.”
Cardinal Amaranth and Violet contemplated each other amid a tense moment of introspection, both made a decision.
“There is no place for you here, child,” Cardinal Amaranth said with finality.
“I am not leaving without the professor,” Violet said.
“Violet,” the familiar voice of the professor came from behind her. “I am staying here.” Violet turned to see the professor standing in the door way. He walked towards Violet’s shocked expression. “They can make my legs work. They can give me back my life.” The professor reached out towards Violet, his arms shaking and his eyes darting towards Cardinal Amaranth. “They seek only knowledge. They want to destroy the creatures.” The professor staggered forward and before Violet could reach him, Cardinal Amaranth caught the professor and placed his hand on the professor’s back. Sparks begun to appear, the air crackled around the professor who began to straighten and stand unsupported.
“Violet,” the professor said. “They have the power to make me walk and want nothing more than the destruction of the creatures that did this to us in the first place…”
Violet knew that this was very wrong.
“But at what cost?”
“Now, my child,” Cardinal Amaranth said intervening between Violet and the professor. “It is time to go.” A contingent of three clerics arrived from the door behind her and Violet felt the threat of a forceful strike. She readied herself. One of the clerics approached the Cardinal and whispered in his ear.
“That is a shame,” the cardinal said out loud. “Please escort the great messiah back to his room.” The three clerics left with the professor and the Cardinal turned to Violet. “It seems there has been an accident. Your driver is dead.”
“Swanson?”
“I am afraid so.”
“You killed him. Why?”
“It is unfortunate. A harmle
ss charge was used to elicit his cooperation to bring the great messiah and yourself here. But it seems one of our younger members lost control. Your driver was given a charge to drain him of his memories, but once a charge is built up, it needs to be transferred. I take full responsibility for his death.”
“If you take responsibility for his death,” Violet replied lifting the ruffled material of her bustle. “Then you shall pay with your own life.” Before Violet could even withdraw her blades, she felt two hands on her waist and a jolt that constricted her corset around her before feeling a dramatic expansion that seemed to explode her forward and send her into blackness.
Violet gained consciousness with the same unsteady feeling she had experienced in the gin palace. It was no more agreeable the second time and Violet decided it was not going to happen again. Feelings of vengeance began to sharpen Violet’s thoughts. Her wrists and ankles were shackled to the floor in a square room with smooth walls over fifteen feet high and no windows. The chains were hidden beneath a foot of murky water and several corpses that bounced against her. Amid the rotting carcasses she saw the decaying face of the cardinal—except the cardinal was standing by the open door, looking down at her with a smile.
“You are no better than the tentacled creatures,” Violet shouted up at him. “You destroyed the lives of these innocent victims.”
“We take what we need to survive,” Cardinal Amaranth replied.
“I pledged to send those monsters back to hell and now I vow to dispatch you all.”
“I am truly sorry, my child. I had hoped, for the great messiah’s sake, that you would be able to leave us on more amicable terms. Now you will die and we will float your body into the Thames. Another poor cock chafer who has succumbed to the harshness of her life.” Cardinal Amaranth stepped out of the room as the water began to rise.
Violet lent down into the rising water to rapidly unbutton her gown. They had rifled through her bustle and taken her blades, but her corset was untouched. Using a throwing knife, she prized the lock at her wrists as the corpses began to jostle together. Something had entered with the water. Violet felt a long body slither by her ankles. The water rose rapidly as eels were beginning to flood into the room. Her hands freed, she started on her ankles as the eels nipped at her corset sending small jolts through her knives. The electric shocks would not be fatal. Not from these creatures. If she could not free her ankles, she would drown and the eels would feast on her remains. Violet released her ankles and stood up, the water had reached her waist and the eels had become increasingly ambitious, propelling themselves out of the water at her torso.
The door was sealed shut and Violet could feel no release mechanism in the gloomy darkness. Except, it was not totally dark. At the highest point in the room was an overflow that must lead to some form of drainage. Jamming her knives into the brick, Violet began to scale the wall. As Violet pulled herself up, her dress, heavy with putrid water, hindered her progress. Using one of her knives, she hacked away at the fastenings of the material until it fell away leaving her attired in camisole, corset, bloomers and stockings. Her corset scrapped across the mortar as she squeezed through the small overflow. Sliding down the slime and sewage covered outer wall, Violet landed in the sewer.
Violet pulled herself up. The pulse in her head had only intensified with exertion. She was dirty and smelt like the rum bodick responsible for collecting horse manure. She had destroyed her favorite dress, her undergarments were shredded and she was angry.
Walking back to the professor’s house, Violet formulated her offensive. The professor, Violet reasoned, did not have a great deal of time before he shared Swanson’s fate. In preparing an army for a war against a formidable force there is a short distanced between a messiah and a martyr. She was not going to lose the professor. At the professor’s house, Violet washed, changed, slept and then worked through the night and the next day. When Violet arrived back at the arched wooden door it was evening again.
Cardinal Amaranth had not been surrounded by many clerics, but Violet expected to encounter at least three prior to finding him.
The first cleric only noticed Violet’s rapier thin blade as it pierced his lower back, ran through his chest and exited his cheek. Violet was unsure about the physiology of these monsters, but, as the professor had told her, every creature protects their most important organs, destroy enough of them and you will bring down the monster. The first cleric fell quickly.
The second cleric spotted a movement that he investigated only to stumble into Violet waiting for him with a mix of oil and metal balls. When he attempted to draw a charge, the balls conducted and the oil ignited. Violet used her blade to end his suffering and stop him from making too much noise.
The third and fourth cleric saw Violet coming, which was exactly what Violet wanted. She ran towards them as they began to charge a shock. With her rapier blades out-stretched, Violet pierced a hand of each cleric and then rolled forward. Pulling her blades out of the clerics at the last moment, she used her momentum to bring the clerics face to face. It had been a gamble, but as she stepped free, the clerics expended their charge on each other.
The fifth cleric, Violet was not counting on, but the hissing noise in her head meant he was attempting to hide from Violet. The attempt was futile. Violet silently stalked him and slit his throat with one of the porcelain blades she kept in her corset. She had been struck down twice because of her corset. It would not happen again.
Finally, Violet came face to face with the Cardinal Amaranth.
“Violet, my child. You look so becoming.” He motioned towards her voluminous jacket with large gigot sleeves that looked like inflated balloons carried on each shoulder. “Were you running a little low on clothes? I believe the style is a little dated, apart from those blades of yours. I would ask you to put them away except they make my job much easier.” He moved towards her sparks of electricity dancing around the palms of his hands. Violet stood motionless.
“Accounts of your prowess must have been embellished,” he said progressing closer, his hands held stretched out ready to strike. “I would have thought you would have learnt from your encounters with my choirboy and clerics. Thin blades or thick blades it is of no consequence. I can use both. Except this time you will not get a little jolt. When I knock you out, you will not wake up. You will be burnt alive and I am afraid that pretty dress of yours will not be able to disguise the hideousness of your death.”
Violet raised her blades towards him.
“That is right my child, welcome the inevitable. I will give you peace and make it as painless as possible.”
Cardinal Amaranth reached towards Violet’s blades. The first moment that he realized something was very wrong was when he heard a sound like the whispered report of a pair of barking irons. The next thing Cardinal Amaranth heard were his own screams as the force of Violet’s rapier blades, lodged into his hands with their barbed edges, propelled him backwards into the wall. Violet’s blades, fired from her newly constructed gauntlets had lifted Cardinal Amaranth off his feet and secured him against the wall with a blade lodged in each hand. Blood and electricity were beginning to seep out of his wounds as he noticed the silver wire connecting both blades together. The sleeves and front of Violet’s dress had been torn away by the mechanisms resembling crossbows that were visibly attached to each shoulder.
“I never had time for the professor’s lectures about what the creatures were or where they came from,” Violet said walking towards the Cardinal. “I did pay attention when he told me about destroying monsters. Fear not dear Cardinal, I have learnt from you as well. As you said yourself, once a charge is built up it needs to be transferred and you did accept the responsibility for Swanson’s death. Now accept responsibility for your own.”
Cardinal Amaranth’s body began to hiss and sizzle as Violet’s blades and the silver wire completed a circuit that returned his charge back into his body. A look of agony swept across his face. His features were taut wi
th pain as he was destroyed from the inside.
“You drained the professor of everything he knew about the creatures,” Violet said as she inspected Cardinal Amaranth’s smoldering body. “You should have looked a little further. In order to destroy monsters in the first place, he needed to know a lot about weapons.”
Violet approached Cardinal Amaranth’s body, still pinned against the wall, juddering with the final moments of an agonizing death. She unfastened the blouse of her dress to reveal two long porcelain knives tucked safely into her corset.
“I know,” Violet said wrapping the handles of the knives with material torn from the shoulders of her dress, “that this is going to hurt me, but it is going to kill you, so I’ll accept the responsibility.” Violet bought the sword up to his chest and paused for a moment. “I want you to know that you brought this on yourself and now I am not only going to hunt down and send all of your tentacled kin back to hell, I am going to send you and your kind back to hell with them.” Violet lifted the blades as if to strike and then paused.
“It is too late for you to act upon good advice,” she said with a smile. “But criticizing a woman’s dress is a sure way to exact her vengeance.”
Violet thrust the knives deep into his chest and was immediately thrown backwards as crackles of energy exploded from his deteriorating remains.
She picked herself up, glancing for a moment at the charred remains of Cardinal Amaranth. The professor groaned from the other side of the room. Slumped against the wall, he opened his eyes. His vision was blurred, his head swimming and his body aching. The electricity that had animated his body and mastered his will was fading.
“Violet,” the professor stammered. “What are we going to do? They will know what has happened to Cardinal Amaranth and descend on us.” Violet pulled her blades from the burnt remains of the cardinal and reinserted them into her gauntlets.
Both Barrels of Monster Hunter Legends (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 1) Page 48