The Valentine Circle

by Reinaldo DelValle

  “I’m glad you like it,” Horace remarked.

  “May I?” Clarkson said.

  “Well, she doesn’t belong to me anymore, so have at it, as long as you don’t mind having seconds.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. After a few minutes with me, she’ll have forgotten all about you.”

  “If you say so. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to meet my new fiancée.” He bounced the ring in his hand. “Goodbye, Posy.” He left the room.

  Clarkson motioned for his men to leave and shut the door behind them. Once they were gone, Clarkson approached Posy. “Are you ready to have me?”

  Posy spit on his face, making Clarkson retaliate with a punch to her eye and then a kick to her lower back, forcing her to fall off the bed. As she hit the floor, she realized she’d just landed on something sharp and pointy as the pain struck her in the upper thigh. Realizing what it was, she quickly pushed it aside.

  “Get up, whore.”

  She refused, and so he took her and shoved her back on the bed, noticing that her nose was bleeding.

  “Sorry about that,” Clarkson said. “Why don’t you use those sheets to clean yourself up, please? The blood tends to dampen the mood.”

  Posy wiped away the blood from her nose.

  Clarkson began by unzipping his pants. “I’m going to violate you like you’ve never been before.”

  Posy clenched her fists as her knuckles popped.

  “I know you’ve never been with a man like me. I’d say I’m twice as big as any man you’ve ever had.”

  Posy scooted herself to the side of the bed where she had taken the fall and said, “Good, the bigger it is, the easier it is for me to pleasure you.”

  Clarkson’s eyes glowed with excitement. “I’m glad you’re coming to your senses.”

  “Come here.”

  Clarkson strode up to her, keeping his focus on her mouth. He dropped his pants, revealing himself to her. “Here it is. Take it and be gentle, like the good little lass you are.”

  Posy’s eyes swelled up with anger as she reached out her hand to get a good grip on her target.

  The burly officer gasped as her warm hand touched his skin.

  “You know, it’s funny that you’d say that. I have a friend named Little Lass, and lucky for me, she just happens to be by my side.”

  Clarkson opened his eyes and saw something glimmering in her hand. “What is that?”

  Seconds later, a harrowing yell filled the air!

  Out in the den, the four officers were shocked to hear the blood-curdling shriek, the voice sounding like a girl being cut straight in two.

  “What is he doing to her?” Horace said, jumping up and running towards the bedroom. When he opened the door, he saw Posy standing up near the side of the bed, covering herself up with the sheets. In her right hand she held Little Lass, blood dripping down its blade. Instantly, he heard muffled moans coming forth from beneath her. He stepped inside the room and moved closer to Posy, until, at last, he saw Clarkson’s body lying on the floor, moaning with a stifled sound, for his mouth was obstructed with something thick and bloody.

  It took a few seconds for Horace to realize what Clarkson had in his mouth, and then his eyes trembled. Three of Clarkson’s men came in and pushed Horace aside, knocking him down to the floor. Horace quickly stood up and ran out of the room. The three officers carefully approached their fallen leader as Posy stood near the bedpost, shivering from a rush of adrenaline.

  Once the officers took in the horrific scene, they instinctively pulled out their revolvers and began shooting at Posy. Lucky for her, they were all terrible marksmen, and everything around Posy began to explode. Vases, pictures, and lanterns were all smashed into little pieces, forcing Posy to yell out from the sudden shock of fear. But unfortunately for Posy, just as she was about to reach inside the nightstand’s drawer, one of the rounds caught her on her left side, instantly knocking her down on the floor, wounded and bleeding.

  The officers lowered their weapons when they realized Posy had gone down. Believing she was dead, the three officers holstered their revolvers and dove in to help Clarkson, doing their best to tear off pieces of clothing in order to stop the bleeding flowing from between his thighs. One of the officers had the unfortunate duty of removing what was in his mouth, which made him gag and then throw up next to Clarkson’s body.

  “We need more stuff to soak up the blood,” one of the officers said. “If we don’t stop this bleeding, he’ll die soon.” He turned to the officer who had just thrown up. “Jansen, go and find some towels.”

  “From where?” Jansen stood up.

  “I don’t know; go ask the judge out in the den.”

  But before Jansen could move, his eyes were focused on something else.

  “What’s the matter, Jansen?”

  They heard a drawer open up, followed by the sound of a revolver being taken out of its holster, the sound being all too familiar to them. Slowly, the two officers that were bent over Clarkson’s body stood up and turned around.

  Facing them was a bloodied Posy. She had been shot just under her left shoulder, which she trouble moving, but her right arm worked just fine, and in her hand was a large .45 caliber revolver, the Manstopper, as she aptly named it years earlier.

  There was a tense moment of silence before Posy spoke out with anger, “Well, are you going to draw or just look at my breasts all day?”

  With that, the officers reached for the guns, thinking that they could outdraw a woman, especially one that was as wounded as Posy was.

  But Posy was no ordinary woman. Not only was she the daughter of an educated professor, but the granddaughter of a country farmer and avid hunter, one who taught her how to take a deer’s nipple off its skin from a hundred yards away. Without blinking, Posy used her left hand to tap her revolver’s hammer, allowing her handgun to fire in rapid succession, filling up the officers in front of her full of hot lead.

  Within seconds, all three of them fell to the floor, dead.

  The fourth officer, who was standing outside the hallway in order to make sure no one became too curious about the ruckus happening inside Posy’s apartment, suddenly rushed inside after hearing the amount of gunfire sound off into the hallway. Reaching the bedroom, he quickly shot at her from his hip, missing Posy by a hair. Startled, Posy put a bullet between his eyes, blowing a huge hole out the back of his head. Lifeless, he fell to the floor.

  After covering herself with a robe, Posy stepped outside into the den and found Horace cowering behind one of the couches. “Stand up...dear.”

  Horace didn’t move.

  “I said stand up.” She shot one of the lanterns hanging on the wall. Horace shrieked before finally standing up. “Where is my ring?”

  “Your what?”

  “Don’t make me ask again.”

  Horace took it out of his pants’ pocket and held it up so she could see it. “I have it here.”

  “Good. Throw it at me.”

  “What?”

  “Have you gone deaf all of a sudden? I said throw it at me!”

  Horace took the ring and lobbed it at her, and the second he did, Posy cocked her revolver and shot the ring into a million pieces.

  Scared, Horace reacted by falling to the floor. “Are you mad? Why did you go and do that for?”

  “To put a smile on my face. Now tell me all that you know.”

  “Know about what?”

  “There’s a reason those officers came over this evening. It wasn’t just a random act. Tell me what you know.”

  “I don’t remember much.”

  “Well, you better start remembering everything unless you want me to stuff your balls inside your mouth like I did to that bastard lying on my bedroom floor.”

  “Okay, okay,” Horace said with his hands up. “Fine. They came to me with the offer, and when I took it, they told me what their plan was. They’ve already dealt with Inspector Belloc.”

  “What do you mean?”
/>
  “He’s in the hospital,” Horace admitted, squirming. “He was badly beaten.”

  Her grip tightened. “And where’s Silas?”

  “From what I heard, he was captured as well, and...beaten even worse.”

  “What?!” She cocked her gun.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Horace pleaded. “Don’t point that thing at me.”

  “And Dalton?”

  “They have no idea. He went into hiding, but they’re not worried about him. They knew you would start snooping around and getting yourself into trouble, so they needed to take care of you quickly and throw you in with Silas after Clarkson and his men were done having their way with you.”

  “I should fucking kill you.”

  “Please don’t.”

  But right then, Posy began seeing double. The amount of blood loss she’d suffered was finally taking a toll on her body, and before she could react to her dizziness, she tumbled to the floor, dropping her revolver. She struggled to keep awake.

  Horace slowly walked over to her and picked up the handgun. He raised it up to her, contemplating the decision to finish her off and hopefully have it be an open-and-shut case, where the assailants and the victim both killed themselves off. He cocked the revolver and paused for a second. “I’m sorry I have to do this. Farewell, my love.”

  He suddenly felt something cold on his head. A hammer cocked.

  “Put it down,” Dalton demanded. “Do it now.”

  Promptly, Horace let go of the revolver. “I wasn’t going to do anything. I swear.”

  “Of course you weren’t.” Then Dalton took his revolver and cold-cocked him in the head. Horace dropped down to the floor, unconscious. “Bastard.”

  Dalton immediately rushed over to Posy, looking at her wound. “Damn it. Hold on, Posy. I’ll get you help as soon as I can.”

  “Silas,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “He needs help.”

  “Well, we need to worry about you first.”

  Taking her in his arms, he scurried out of the apartment and down the stairs on his way to his carriage in order to transport Posy to the nearest hospital.

  ***

  A few hours passed into the night as Silas dangled inside his jail cell, his arms still strung up on shackles hanging from the ceiling. His body all bruised up, there was blood smeared on his face, arms, and all over his chest, yet he was still conscious. To his left were a couple of officers keeping guard, sitting down at a table as they enjoyed a game of chess while smoking cigarettes and drinking shots of bourbon. There was no one else inside the cell as far as he could tell, and no one out in the hallways either, for his keen ears would’ve picked up on any strange noises lingering outside his cell.

  For the next ten minutes, it was quiet. Silas’s captors immersed themselves into another game of chess, and Silas hung there sulking in his misery. But after those ten minutes passed, Silas’s ears picked up on a pair of footsteps walking down the hallway. Then he heard two loud thumps followed by some struggling. The officers who were sitting at the table next to Silas jumped to their feet and proceeded to rush out of the jail cell and into the long, dimly lit hallway.

  Seconds later, Silas heard a gunshot just before one of the officers cried out in pain. Anxiously, he waited, wanting to know what was happening outside his cell. Soon he saw one of the guards walking back towards the cell with a gun pointed at his head. The man at the other end of the gun was none other than his friend, Dalton.

  “Come on,” Dalton said as they reached the cell. “In you go.”

  The officer stepped into the cell just before being knocked out.

  “I never thought I’d be happy to see you,” Silas said.

  “Why? What did I ever do to you?”

  “Um, never mind. Just get me down, please.”

  “Well, that’s...confusing.” Dalton grabbed the keys from the officer’s belt and used them to remove the handcuffs from Silas. “How are you holding up? Do you think you can walk out of here?”

  “I’ll make do.” Silas flexed and stretched his muscles. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

  Dalton stared at him for a second, noticing his eyes—they were totally different, no longer bright and open but more sullen and dark. “Are you okay? Do you still hurt?”

  “At first there was a lot of pain, but now I feel nothing,” Silas replied, popping his neck.

  “Your head’s bleeding.”

  “It’ll stop.”

  “Say, you don’t think that knock to your head might have brought any more of your memories back?”

  “If only.”

  “Wishful thinking, I guess.”

  “Only time will tell,” Silas replied, grabbing his torn shirt from the floor. “So how’s Belloc?”

  “He’s doing much better. He’s recuperating faster than the doctors thought he would.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Silas said before realizing something. “Wait, how did you find out I was being held here?”

  “Posy told me.”

  “Posy? How did she know?” He could tell there was something wrong with Dalton. “What’s the matter? Is Posy all right? Tell me now, Dalton.”

  “Well, she’s...been through some things.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “She was assaulted by Decamps’s men, the same men that captured you, but she managed to escape.”

  “Assaulted? Is she all right?”

  “Yes. But she was shot in the shoulder. The good thing is that the bullet went straight through. She lost a lot of blood, but I got her to the hospital just in time. She’s in surgery at the moment, but she should pull through without any problems.”

  Silas’s face softened for a moment. Poor Posy. Then his face quickly stiffened. God, that makes me mad as hell.

  He clenched his teeth, and he felt as if he’d been hit in the gut, and he knew right then that he had more feelings for Posy than he’d led himself believe. “I have to see her.”

  “Silas, there’s...another thing.”

  “What thing?”

  Dalton swallowed a big gulp. “I learned from a few trusted officers that there’s been another homicide.”

  “Homicide?” Silas asked, curious. “You mean one of the girls?”

  “It’s definitely a girl, but not one from the Valentine Circle.”

  “So it was a random homicide? What does that have to do with us?”

  “Well, the girl lived in Worcester Estates. She—that is, her parents—are part of the Valentine Society.”

  A feeling of dread started to crawl up Silas’s back. “What is it that you’re not telling me?”

  “You know her.”

  Silas’s face turned pale. “I...I don’t understand. What do you mean, I know her?” He began shaking his head. “I don’t know any of those girls except for the six belonging to the Valentine Circle, and then there’s…Lucy.” His hands trembled. “But…but she’s at a job, interviewing a war vet who works in some taxidermy shop.”

  “Silas, this girl was found in an abandoned back alley right behind a taxidermy shop.”

  There was a deep pain beginning to surge inside Silas’s chest, and his chin started to quiver. “No, it’s not her. It’s not Lucy. It has to be someone else. That just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Silas,” Dalton said, moving up to him. “I’m pretty sure it’s her. Who else would it be?”

  Silas crouched down, putting his head between his knees. “I don’t understand. Why would that happen to Lucy? Why would that happen?!”

  Silas stood up, and with a power he never thought he had, took his fist and slammed it down right in the center of the wooden table. The table split right in two. “Lucy. Lucy, no. Lucy, where are you?” In a state of disbelief, he darted out of the jail cell and took off running.

  “No, Silas, wait!” Dalton yelled, chasing after him. “You can’t just go running out of the precinct. They’ll see you.”

  But it was too l
ate. Silas had already vanished into thin air.

  “Where the hell did he go?” Dalton stopped and sighed, taking a few seconds to think about his next course of action. He looked at the guard in front of him and then over to the one lying on the floor, moaning, with his kneecap shot out. He realized he had a mess to clean up. “How the heck am I going to explain this?”

  The cop with the wounded kneecap turned to him. “You might as well run, ‘cause you’re dead now. You’re dead!”

  Dalton shot him in the thigh. “Great. One more thing to explain.”

  *

  DARKNESS.

  That’s all that existed throughout the wintry streets of Boston the minute Silas learned of what happened to Lucy. As he ran through the cold streets, all he could see were abandoned street corners and late-night taverns. It was all too jarringly quiet for him, but then again, strangely appropriate.

  Did the whole city know Lucy had gone away?

  Just the mere thought of it made Silas’s heart shiver. It’s just the cold, he thought. No, he’d retrieved his coat and kamas from the prison evidence locker without anyone seeing him, so it couldn’t have been the winter frost. No, he knew why he ached so much. He had just lost the only person he’d ever cared for. It was a love unfulfilled, and his heart began to shrivel, as if someone took it and squeezed all the life out of it. He wondered who that someone was.

  He flew down the darkened streets, running as fast as he could, regardless of the pain he felt from his recent injuries. Feeling the hardness of the pavement shoot through his feet and up his legs only made him pick up his pace, sprinting towards a darkness he knew would tear him apart. As he ran, he could not help but think of a time when all he did was run through the deep hills of Japan’s mountainous landscape.

  One memory in particular entered his mind.

  In his vision, he chased after someone, and it wasn’t long until he realized it was Lucy. She had made the decision to escape the mountains and board a secret ship that awaited her near the shore. Silas ran after Lucy, trying his best to catch up, dodging the bushy trees and moonlit branches as best as he could, but because he was in a frenzied panic, afraid to lose his true love forever, his focus was displaced, and he often tripped and ran into a number of obscure obstacles. Yet he always kept his eyes on Lucy up ahead in the distant horizon, lit up by the silver eventide. He wanted to catch up and grab her, tell her what she wanted to hear once and for all.