Violet’s considerable experience with fearful shrieks told her these were not screams of shock and surprise, these were horrifying screams of agonising pain and the torment before imminent death.
The huge mass of the beast’s body had filled the limited space between the buildings. Violet could either squeeze herself against the beast’s lower body or run back along the sea wall to get in front of the monster. Regardless of how little interest the beast was showing in Violet and how terrible the screams of the beast’s innocent victims were, putting herself in close proximity to the beast and essentially blinding her to any attacks was not a justifiable risk. Violet ran down narrow alleys, over makeshift bridges, under arches of discarded sails and through refuse strewn snickleways to arrive at the end of the dock just as a young dollymop was being pulled by her ankle into the beast’s noxious body.
Violet continued to run as the girl’s face contorted from horror into insufferable pain. The dollymop struggled against the beast, her fingernails ripping and bleeding against the wooden boards of the quay in a futile attempt to halt her progress. As the dollymop was drawn fully into the viscous flesh of the monster’s body, Violet was close enough to see the silently screaming faces of the monster’s victims as they floated in its body.
Gin addled patrons were staggering in various directions, tripping over their abject fear. Violet needed to do something quickly. Direct attacks had failed. She needed to distract the monster. There must be something that would attract its attention. Then she saw the leaking barrels of kerosene and smelt the sulphuric stench of burning tar.
Violet seized the discarded cart of a rag merchant and loaded it with barrels of flammable liquid. Using her blades to lift a bubbling vat of tar, Violet placed the vat on top of the cart, the heat spreading up her blades to warm the inside of her gauntlets. Violet hacked and coughed, the foul smelling liquid splashing over her and burning her exposed skin. She gave the cart a push and it rolled along the uneven incline of the quay, splashing kerosene along the dock until it bounced to a stop against the creature.
A sharp strike of one of Violet’s blades along the flint stone of the Lost Guinea’s exterior produced a shower of sparks that ignited the kerosene. A trail of fire burned towards the cart, rags soaked in kerosene readily caught fire. The fire spread quickly and barrels behind Violet began to combust. The increasing blaze was accompanied by small blasts escalating into larger explosions. Violet ran. She only had a moment to make it safely past the cart.
As a tentacle began to take notice of Violet, the barrels exploded on the cart splashing liquid tar on the creature. It shrieked, a high-pitched noise like the shattering of glass lasting for several seconds. Violet smiled.
The beast lurched away from the Lost Guinea. In Violet’s estimation, the creature’s progress through the patrons of the Lost Guinea was cut off. It would either retreat back to the river or follow Violet. It did not favour retreat.
Violet continued to run. There was only one narrow road and it gently sloped downward. As the monster picked up momentum to escape the flames, Violet certainly hoped she had picked the right direction. When the creature caught up to her, it was not going to be pleased. Violet smiled.
The street led down to train tracks slopping under the half-full gas bell of the Sutton gas works. The Thames tunnel of the new underground railway was opening before Violet. The recently installed lights of the London Gas Company flickered in the tunnel with reassuring regularity, but it seemed the station was not yet operational.
Violet ground to a halt—the train tracks continued but the tunnel was blocked by a sturdy wooden wall. Even in the murky gloom just beyond the platform it was obvious there was no opening. Violet banged on the wooden barricade. A swift strike of her blade barely cut an inch into the heavy wood.
Violet turned. The dim glow of the gaslight reflected off the monster’s gelatinous body, its tentacles and tendrils were seeking her out as its tall body squeezed down into the low tunnel.
The creature sealed the tunnel and moved towards Violet with grave inevitability. This really was going to be the end. Stripped of even the hope of escape, the many transgressions of Violet’s life passed through her mind and left her exposed to a feeling of horrific responsibility. By abducting the professor, the electric monks had planted the seed of vengeance within Violet. Hatred had grown within her and blossomed into a flurry of violence, but now, standing in her undergarments at the end of an unused underground tunnel, she was good and truly angry.
When the electric monks killed Swanson, Violet lost the best driver in the British Empire and was left without transportation, but when they kidnapped the professor, she was left without direction.
Anxiety channelled into willpower had allowed Violet to amplify her sense of the electric monks. Her only regret was that after killing the leader to rescue the professor, she only found it necessary to kill three more to escape. As she helped the professor into the one horse hansom cab she vowed to return.
With the professor out cold in the cab Violet was unusually contemplative. She thought about the tentacled creatures that surreptitiously emerged from the Thames and took the bodies of young prostitutes to wear their skins like old coats in a storm. The tentacled creatures, it seemed, had only come looking for the electric monks and were at least honest about their brutality.
The electric monks wore the smiling faces of clergy to escape the tyranny of the tentacled creatures and imposed a cruel oppression on all they encountered. They were cold, heartless and calculating conduits of brutal voltage. If there were no more electric monks, Violet reasoned, the tentacled creatures would have no reason to venture beyond the putrid Thames.
Having returned the professor to his home and entrusted him to the housekeeper Mrs. Hearnsweaver, Violet retired to the professor’s armoury and made her preparations.
On the first night, Violet used insulated gauntlets and throwing knives to assault the chaotic cloisters of the electric monks. She had depleted the professor’s stock of ceramic knives and much to the chagrin of Major Ashworth, who took pride in his care of the professor’s armoury, Violet resorted to any implement not made of metal capable of inflicting pain and death: Glass, slivers of slate, some of the gardener’s wooden stakes and even Mrs. Hearnsweaver’s ivory knitting-needles. The housekeeper was not happy when she discovered the requisition—Violet had not given it a second thought. There was nothing but destruction. She returned to the clerical cloisters with a red veil of vengeance in her eyes and meted out slaughter to all she encountered. She returned home exhausted with a singed corset and an unabated hunger for retribution.
On the second night they were running and that just made Violet mad. Forced to follow on foot, every step she took reminded her that they had killed the Swanson. The coachman had escorted her on many hunts. He had accompanied and supported her when she was taken by the chase. They rarely spoke, but, for Violet, it was what passed for human attachment. He had been an amicable attendant and it cost him his life.
They were hiding on the third night. Violet had violated their sanctuary, diminished their numbers and brutally slain all she discovered. They never put up much of a fight. At heart they were cowards and Violet, with her instinct for the hunt, quickly realised a little fear made them pliable and easily subdued. She relished their fearful moments more than the kill. Attempts to hide from her were futile. A moment of concentration let Violet know everything she needed. At first, it had been difficult to trust the hissing that buzzed through her head, but she rapidly adapted and used it to direct her straight to their hiding place. Once she knew where they were, Violet lingered, letting them know she had arrived, letting them bathe in anguish of imminent discovery. A moment of two of torment would transform them into cowering wretches.
Her hunting strategy never failed, but the pleasure diminished. By the end of the night, Violet could barely look at them as she ended their existence. She followed them wherever they went. Nowhere was sacred and having hunted
them mercilessly, she returned to the professor’s house weary with exhaustion and empty triumphs.
The next night, Violet awoke from an hour of fitful sleep to find the professor waiting at her door. He was still wearing his nightgown and was swaddled in a tartan blanket.
“You should be resting,” Violet said dismissively.
“You should not be so careless,” the professor answered holding up a copy of the morning edition. The headline ran, ‘Monk impaled on altar candle.’ Violet smiled. “For God’s sake Violet. You killed one in a church.”
“Not for God’s sake,” Violet replied, her voice straining with anger.
“Forget the possible consequences to you, you need to consider the biological consequences.”
“I have no time for your lectures professor,” Violet pushed past his chair. “I need to prepare for the hunt. I believe that I have dramatically depleted their numbers and I further believe I can wipe them out before they find a way to hide from me, but you have run out of effective weapons. I have been making use of anything I can.”
“Yes, I heard. Mrs. Hearnsweaver is not at all pleased.”
“Not pleased?” Violet exploded, “Would it have pleased her if I had let them kill you as they killed Swanson? Would she be pleased if I let them roam free to increase in numbers and kill indiscriminately?”
“No, but she would be pleased if you stopped killing indiscriminately. We all would.” Violet noticed the coy faces of the servants amid the shadows of the corridor. Even the boisterous moustache of Major Ashworth was looking forlorn. “The reason I am up out of bed when I should be resting is the household has come to me because they are worried about you.”
“Once again professor, I do not have time for this.” Violet turned away from the professor’s apprehensive expression.
“I am worried about the biological consequences of the complete annihilation of an entire species,” the professor said. “And, I am worried about you. I am worried that you are being lost to your own vengeance. When I pulled you from the mud and healed you to the best of my ability, I could not give you everything you needed. I feared that your very soul was gone. You seemed to find comfort in the hunt. It was scant compensation for the violence inflicted by those tentacled monsters.”
“You gave me my blades. You gave me my corset,” Violet said, her head bowed. “You gave me a purpose. It was more than I had before.”
“If you have truly become nothing more than the sum of your blades and your purpose then you have become nothing more than the monsters who created you and I wish you had let them kill me.” Violet had relied on her blades for support and comfort. She remembered how merely holding them had made her feel complete and given her a steadfast resolve. Now, her fortitude had dissipated. Overwhelmed with feelings of uncertainty, she was aware of a need for direction.
“And what would you have me do?” Violet implored. “Would you have me let them disappear only to rebuild their numbers by slaughtering anyone they wish? Would you have me wash my hands of the matter? Leave the terror of these monsters to others? If I don’t kill them how am I to defeat them?”
“Unfortunately my dear, I have no idea,” the professor said. “My experience of these monsters tells me that they are infinitely more logical than the tentacled beasts. I will not defend any creature that participates in wholesale slaughter. However, I will say these creatures do not expend energy unless there is a logical reason to do so. By your own admission, you have hunted them to the brink of extinction. For the survival of their species I fear they will take drastic action.”
“You don’t think they would turn to the tentacled creatures they have been fleeing? What would happen if they do?”
“Two valid questions, my dear, and each are worthy of investigation. At present, I cannot hazard a hypothesis for either. I can only speculate that left unchecked, our current predicament may yield a catastrophe worse than we can imagine. I will retire to my laboratory.” Violet made a motion to remonstrate. “Do not argue with me. You of all people know I have been through worse. I fear that the situation may be dire. These electrical creatures have been willing to go to great lengths to keep away from the tentacled beasts. We need to know why. You must find an electrical creature and talk to it.”
“Yes professor,” Violet said. It was good to have the professor back. “Professor,” Violet said after a pause. “I want you to know…”
The professor brought his good hand out from under the blanket and took her hand.
“Violet, there is no time now and I cannot promise that such a time will ever come. I too fear that our very existence is currently threatened. It may well be that we can do nothing to halt the inevitable, but we cannot linger. My greatest concern is we have become a part of the rapid evolutionary system of these beasts and that our actions have brought about a catastrophe that will have terrible consequences for mankind.” The professor broke into a smile. “So it is with some irony that I say, we must act now.”
As Violet left the professor’s house, her step faltered. The wet pavement seemed to reel beneath her boots. She staggered as if taken faint by the vapours. Had any gentleman been on the street at such an unsociable hour, he would have no doubt caught her in his arms and applied smelling salts. No gentleman was in attendance, though, and it would have taken more than Hartshorn’s lady restorer to revive Violet from the regret tightening her chest more forcefully than even her wickedly unyielding corset. Still dizzy as she reached the end of the professor’s quiet road, Violet hailed a Hackney cab.
“Take me to Cripplegate,” Violet said. “By the direct route,” she added, knowing the driver, no doubt taken by her apparent respectability, would avoid the Ratcliffe Highway with its inevitable connection to prostitution along the Thames.
Violet sat back in the carriage. The steady movement past the familiar landmarks of the Limehouse docks soothed the spectres of regret that scurried after her until her peace was disrupted by a violent noise like a thundering bee whizzing round her head. The buzzing constricted and then subsided. Before she could gauge the fleeting impression, Violet sensed one of the electric beasts. The hunt had begun and only the direction ahead remained.
Before long, Violet banged on the roof of the carriage. The driver stopped.
“I’ll get out here,” Violet said opening the door and alighting before the driver could dismount.
“Ma’am?” the driver answered looking around the deserted street. Violet pressed three coins into his hand; by the time he had counted the money, she was gone.
The hunt took Violet down a labyrinth of narrow streets. She navigated through a succession of twists and turns that took her through neglected alleys, between buildings, and inside uninhabited cellars that not been visited since the accession of George III. Were it not for the buzzing sensation that guided her onwards, Violet would have abandoned her hunt several times when the path ahead, seemingly a blind alley, revealed a cleverly hidden exit.
It was with some surprise that Violet found the door that opened into a courtyard, an area closed in by buildings on all sides and lit by a meagre spluttering gas lamp. In the centre of the courtyard appeared to be three dead tree stumps. Two were the height of a tall man and as wide as a doughman’s barrel. They would have been majestic trees until the building grew up around them and, cutting off light and rain, doomed them to certain death. The third was slimmer and shorter, and, as Violet approached, turned out to be the source of the buzzing.
It was no tree stump, but a darkly cloaked figure. A swift slash of Violet’s blades caused the cloak to fall away, revealing a boy of barely ten years old wearing a white cassock and high starched collar.
“Stay exactly where you are,” Violet said, her blades poised at the ready.
“Yes, ma’am,” a young voice said.
“You are only a child?” Violet said, having forgotten for a moment about the creatures’ ability to take on the forms of others.
“Not exactly,” he said. �
�But I surrender to you and will offer no resistance.” Violet did not lower her blades—these were cunning creatures. She thought of the professor as he worked alone in his laboratory with only the servants to protect him.
“If you have taken the professor I will…”
“Do not be alarmed for his sake,” the boy interrupted. “You have provided us with enough cause to seek retribution, but we have not. He is quite safe. Although, I fear our actions may have put everyone in danger.”
“Do you attempt to threaten me?” Violet asked. “I who have slain so many of your brethren? I who can sense your every move?”
“I do not move. I do not threaten you. I do not do anything, for soon I must perish.” Violet lowered her blades as the delight of the hunt seeped away.
“You have given up?” Violet asked. “It is okay. I will not harm you. Come, let us leave this place.”
“I am afraid I couldn’t go even if I wanted.” Violet looked puzzled. “It has taken everything I am to bring you here and soon I will expire.” A crackling started buzzing around him.
“Why?” Violet asked. “Why did you bring me here? What is happening?”
“I am afraid I am not much longer for this world.” He looked up at Violet. “It was I who killed your coachman and for that I am sorry. He did not suffer, but I fear our actions may cause many others to suffer.” Sparks flew from his body in bursts of energy. “They have gone to those who seek us. They fear for our survival and I fear they may have doomed everyone.”
The professor had been right. Violet cursed his scientific acumen.
“The Limehouse docks,” the boy said his voice fracturing as Violet watched him dissolve. “It will rise tonight. Do not let it leave the water. Should it spawn you will have brought destruction upon on your world.”
Standing in the tunnel facing the monster, Violet pictured the boy as he disappeared, his body falling into ash while embers of light rose in the air.
Use Enough Gun (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 3) Page 12
