Beatrice slumped in the corner, sword clattering against the tiled floor. Adrenaline warped her mind into a hive of panicking hornets, distorting her vision in a blur. Breath after breath, she tried to calm down, only for distant howls to stoke her terror.
“It’s alright,” Ludwig said, “thing can’t get us.”
“Somehow, I doubt that,” Rene counted her bullets, “beasts don’t relent so easily.”
The elevator came to a sudden halt, and the doors slid aside, revealing a triangular courtyard surrounded by steep walls. Every window faced the deep quarry, filled with pillories and stocks and fenced-off yards designated for goalless labor—where masked prisoners lifted iron shots to and from the yards under blinding spotlights for no further purpose than to humiliate and demean them as men of wasted potential. Deadman’s Walk was but a stone’s throw away, as a junction of barbed wire corridors, divided the punitive sectors in four, centered on a tall guillotine aloft a podium, blade polished to a diagonal point, glistening against the torchlight as vibrant steel—a panopticon of execution.
“So,” Beatrice spoke up, “where’re they keeping Debussy?”
“Probably the top floor,” Ludwig said, “north block.”
The trio skirted the yard’s perimeter, not daring to deviate from the shadows of high stone balustrades. By the guillotine and its pilloried prisoner, an officer read from a long scroll, bearing the uniform of a colonial vassal, vest decorated with badges of Imperial authority.
“By the authority of Her Holiness of the Third Gothic Imperium,” he began, “and her reign over the newly acquired state of Lumiere, the following rights have been revoked in light of the ongoing crisis. Right to assembly and legal counsel, suspended. Right to verdict by a jury of peers, suspended. Right to habeas corpus, suspended….”
Inch by inch, the executioner tugged at the rope, raising the guillotine, black hood obscuring any and all humanity as a monster in his own right. And then, as if on a whim, he let go, letting the blade gather speed until it sliced through the prisoner’s neck with a visceral chop. His head rolled into the basket, followed by spurts of crimson from the stump. There was something uncanny about the blade; the way it shone in the moonlight as if it had never been cleaned, nor had the blood ever dried. This wasn’t justice. This was terror. And Beatrice had a hunch it had seen use for some time. Two monsters guarded the Bastille, one born of the ancien regime and one from the vengeance of revolutionaries.
“Ah,” she managed, “that escalated quickly.”
“Keep your guard up and your weapons low,” Ludwig said, “we’ve got a full garrison to deal with here.” He counted the rounds on his bandolier. “Not that it’ll matter soon.”
“Stay frosty,” Beatrice hissed, “I’d rather not blow our cover.”
“And who made you second in command—?”
“Your dwindling ranks.” She pushed on and ahead. “Trust me, Ludwig. We pulled the same shit to break you out of prison.”
Step by step, they scaled the stairs, careful to edge the corners and keep watch for regimented patrols. Among the searchlights, they came to a storage room between bunkers, devoid of surveillance cameras or armed guards. Its racks were covered in semi-automatics and off-hand weapons, none of which Beatrice knew how to use, save for a stray wooden crate, which sparked her imagination. She dumped the shavings and packing peanuts, realizing she could fit inside with ease—a classic if she ever saw one.
“A box?” Rene scoffed.
“One of the oldest tricks,” Beatrice said. “Trust me. Victor would’ve pulled this shit too.” With a shiv, she cut an eyehole in the box and crouched inside with care.
Rene was about to interject when Ludwig laid a hand on her shoulder. “She’s got this.”
Under cover of cardboard, Beatrice crept down the prison blocks, careful to stay close to the storage units and convoys of trucks. Though hardly accustomed to stealth, she wondered what to say to Debussy. After all, she was a little short for a stormtrooper. When at last she came to the high parapets, the patrols intensified with guards wielding heavy cudgels and lethal arms, masked with steel visors and a degree away from human.
Think I’m getting the hang of—
One spun around, flashlight at hand, as if detecting the snap of a twig. He scanned the perimeter with eerie care but moved on as Beatrice’s anxiety began to soothe. It was a long way to the tower’s top. Finally, she came to the upper bastions plagued with beacons and devious lamps. She shuddered and, step by step, crawled in between the spotlights, heart pounding yet stalwart as they skimmed the wall’s perimeter. At last, she came to the furthest point of the northern ward, where the sounds of the city filled her ears, wafting from the city just across the bay. She passed by the security office, only to watch the cameras sizzle off, one by one, screens engulfed with static. Was there another sabator?
Regardless, the guards came for a second pass.
Beatrice prowled onward, not daring to gaze at the guardians on the edge of sight, even as swaying lantern light filled her peripheral vision. Before the only cell, she tore off the stifling box and checked the door. Locked. She threw her weight against the iron bars. Nothing. The wardens were nearing. Panic began to rear its ugly head until a fanfare breached the silence. Only then did she realize the truth—the cell was empty.
“There he is,” someone screamed from far below, “the traitor!”
“You sold us out to the Imperium!”
A mob of inmates hurled chunks of debris at a miserable old man escorted by a squad of kettle-helmeted guards. Dragged by his wardens, Debussy tried to shield himself from the pelting stones. A warning shot did nothing to quell the mob’s rage. Most were likely political prisoners rounded up overnight by occupying forces.
“Coward!”
“Oh, you’ll ‘face justice,’ all right!”
“By order of her Holiness,” an officer commanded, “I demand you—”
An itchy trigger finger and a stray shot cut him short. When a prisoner fell dead, striped suit splattered with blood, the mob roiled into a riot. Wrathful as the surrounding tide, fever swept the inmates as they lunged at their captors, battering them with iron cuffs and snatching their rifles. Chaos ensued, and Debussy’s cries were swallowed by the screams of desperate men; the guillotine loomed over the courtyard as if watching the bloody spectacle.
“Freeze,” a voice dragged Beatrice to the present, greeting her with a baton against her throat, “don’t move—!”
Out of instinct, Beatrice struck the guard’s arm, snapping his elbow with a sickening crunch. A pommel strike to the skull knocked him out cold. She couldn’t afford to linger. If they were going to save Debussy, she would have to act now. Beatrice raced down the concrete steps, narrowly evading the gathering patrols, watching in horror as they took aim from the battlements, shooting the prisoners like fish in an iron-banded barrel. Finally, she came to the courtyard, where Ludwig and Rene pushed and dodged their way towards the minister. Only to see the minister’s corpse among the headless dead.
“We have to get out of here,” Beatrice said.
Ludwig was at a loss for words, face pale as porcelain.
“Dammit,” she grabbed him by the collar, “let’s cut our losses and go!”
“Where?” he croaked, “where will we go?”
“Fuck this,” she released her grip, “Rene! Come on.”
The ranger nodded and grabbed the stupefied guerilla by the arm. As the sounds of slaughter filled the air, Beatrice understood the weight cracking Ludwig’s spine—the fate of nations, the desire to see happier ends, the promise to better, all culminating in an ill-conceived messiah complex ignorant of unforgiving reality. Was she any better?
Now’s not the time….
Beatrice swung her blade and carved deep into a guard’s shoulder, feeling steel against sinew. With a bone-crunching kick, she watched the warden plummet down the stairs. Guilt was a fleeting thing. She was used to the blood. Even as the flagstones shifted under her boots, Beatrice tried to hold the line. She could wax philosophical later. Here and now, only survival mattered. Upon the outer parapets, Beatrice was greeted by a sheer drop and the roaring sea. Escape seemed a fool’s hope as jackboots closed in.
Wait a second….
Beatrice gazed upward and caught the glimpse of a great gothic saucer hidden by gathering clouds. She hadn’t seen the vessel since Chimay. Not since the city was reduced to ash. Whining sirens filled the air as gargoyles and iron trumpeters took flight from its buttresses.
The Morgenshtern?
“There’s no time to gawk,” Rene shouted and shot a guard in the chest, “we need to make for the lower levels. Now!”
Beatrice nodded, though her resolve, too, was waning. With a blood-curdling scream, Ludwig opened fire on another wave of dueling inmates and prisoners, as if he didn’t care where the blood flowed, only that it was spilled in ample amounts—a cornered beast desperate to break free. Beatrice couldn’t but soak in her share of horror. This was what the man she’d looked up to, her hero and mentor, had been reduced to. A simple truth had broken him.
The rebellion was over.
Down they delved, deep into the ancient labyrinth. The overhead lights flickered on and off as the floorboards began to quake. A familiar growl filled the salt-stained air.
“Oh shit—”
Bits of debris filled the air as a fistful of claws breached the boards, penetrating the floor from below as five gnarled knives. The gate flung open, and Beatrice sprinted down the long hall, glancing over her shoulder in terror. Darkness enveloped the bunkers. The others weren’t far behind as the loup-garou snaked through the paneling, its spine breaching the floor like a shark’s fin, jaws snapping at their heels. Blow after blow, it stabbed through the panels as if seeking to impale its prey. Beatrice took a sharp turn and found—a dead end. She drew her sword and took a defensive stance, expecting the beast to rip through her flesh at any moment.
The loup-garou breached the wooden floor, lunging for the kill. From the far side of the junction, Rene fired her silver pistol. Several rounds pierced the beast’s ribs, and yet, it slathered and snarled as if intoxicated by agony. Silver, it seemed, was as corrosive as it was enthralling. And so, the loup-garou bounded with fang and claw, intent on feasting on such elusive meat.
Until a bullet impaled its skull, splattering bone and gray matter.
“Nice shot,” Beatrice managed.
Rene kept aim. “That wasn’t me.”
Footsteps broke the fleeting silence. From out of the darkness, a lithe form emerged with a familiar gait. Clad in crimson armor, the fiend was dressed in a flowing white coat and wielded a rifle with a smoking barrel. His lips curled into a mad smile, cheeks cracking like porcelain.
Amadeus….
Foul static wormed into Beatrice’s mind. She clutched her ears, feebly attempting to block out the noise but to no avail. Her eyes rolled over, overcome with upward spasms, as Ludwig and Rene collapsed to their knees, all but frothing at the mouth. Suddenly, a skyward quake sent a ton of debris crashing down, separating her from the others. She was alone in the dark. The loup-garou was dead. A far worse monster had come for Lumiere.
#
The Thirteenth Frequency stung the air, pulsing from the Morgenshtern’s engines, stabbing inside Beatrice’s skull like a fistful of knives. The cavern began to contort into a nightmarish miasma of eyes and mouths as black bile boiled from fissures in stone.
Amadeus took a few steps forward, eyes ablaze with smug malice. “Well, well,” he clasped his wrists, “isn’t this a fine chance?”
Beatrice propped herself against her sword, her thoughts fried by the surge, reducing her to a heaving wreck of a woman. She tried to speak, only to manage a bitter growl.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here.” He took a seat among the boulders. “It’s quite simple, really. I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by.”
“W-why are you doing this,” Beatrice choked.
Amadeus rolled his eyes. “You know, I’m getting a little tired of having to explain myself for every city I destroy. I could go on about the Kingdom of Ends, so on and so forth, but I have a hunch that’d bore us both to tears.” He grinned as if basking in the sound of his own voice. “I find it interesting, however, how killing one person leaves such a stain on a soul. Nuke an entire city, and it barely leaves a mark. Why do you think that is?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“The sacrifice of numbered men. By the thousands. Daily. How could it go on for so long? Sometimes, I wonder if the human mind is truly capable of comprehending such destruction, regardless of whether one man dropped the bomb or not. A million is a statistic and all that.”
Beatrice stood, slowly. “What’s your endgame?”
Amadeus met her posture. “There’s a reason I’ve come from half a world away. Edgar’s somewhere in this city. Or perhaps he’s on his way. And as much as I’d like to break his spine, he’s the key to ushering the Kingdom of Ends.”
“What kingdom?”
“Don’t start the ‘ruling a wasteland must be boring’ bullshit. It’s called a tabula rasa—”
“Yeah, ‘blank tablet.’ I’m not an idiot, Victor.”
For a moment, Beatrice saw anger flash across Amadeus’s face. He stepped forward, towering over her, and snarled, “Do not call me that. Victor is dead.”
Anger burned in Beatrice’s chest as if threatening to batter her ribs and expel itself in a frenzy of bile and bloodlust. Her grip tightened around her sword’s hilt as she stared Amadeus in his cold eyes. Her lips curled into a dire grin. She’d go for the pain.
“You know what? Maybe you’re right. The idiot I knew wouldn’t do this. He was troubled, sure. But he was kind, neurotic, and, above all else, had a conscience. Maybe too much. And the sheer existential guilt broke him. But you. You’re pure evil.”
“The way I see it,” Amadeus said, “I’m doing him justice. Of course, I may have deviated from his ideals or, rather, improved his vision.” Rubble quaked from the ceiling as muffled cries filled the air. “Victor was afraid of his own potential. Even if I did nothing at all, the world would continue down the same dark path.”
Beatrice lowered her guard, blade pointed at the flagstone floor. “And what makes you different from all the other dictators and visionary villains?”
“Simple. Because I’m right.”
“Holy shit,” she scoffed, “you really are everything Victor hated about himself.” Her eyes narrowed. “But I wonder…. Do you have the balls to follow through?”
Amadeus cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
Beatrice gripped her sword’s hilt and took a stance, feet firm on the ground, blade pointed at her foe’s chest. “Friends don’t let friends start the apocalypse.”
Amadeus gave a swish of his rapier and stood his ground. “Very well.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a familiar toy rabbit—tattered and threadbare.
Victor’s…!
Amadeus lifted the toy rabbit high in the air, channeling all the power of his broken mind into the toy. “Then allow me to enlighten your weakness.” His lips curled into a ravenous smirk, eager to draw the blood of those who’d dare oppose him, and with an aching cry, screamed and babbled, summoning something that should not be from the abyss, something that Beatrice recognized all too well. “Come forth, Dante!”
Oh shit!
The geist’s boots slammed to earth, ripping with electric hate, staring its prey down, raising its gnarled halberd with a monstrous shriek. It was Victor’s soul, only wrong, perverted by the Inferno into an aberration of divine light. It retained its form, limited to the confines of its original body, but malice seeped through its seams, as the bedtime guardian was now a vessel of destruction; rabbit ears tattered as wartorn banners, flowing against the acrid wind, its eyes empty as the abyss as if draining not just Beatrice, but the world of hope and strength.
As the stitching of its lips came undone, a set of human teeth curled into a grin, mimicking its master, only to burst into mad laughter.
“Kill her,” Amadeus commanded.
Beatrice doubled back, trying desperately to block Dante’s flurry of cleaving blows, rotating its halberd like a tornado over an unsuspecting prairie. They locked blades. Dante pressed down until a glimmer of light burned in its eyes, relenting for a moment.
It wasn’t weakness. It was Victor.
“Futura!” Beatrice screamed. In a fit of self defense, her geist blazed forth in turn, wreathed in cobalt flame, livid with icy intent. With a lash of her whip, she grappled and tore Dante’s halberd out of its hand. Beatrice and her geist were, as one, a shared conscience, divided by neither pain nor fear. “You’ll have to do better than that,” they snarled.
Amadeus let loose a scream and tore at his hair. Dante doubled back and outstretched its palm, channeling the fires of Hell itself. In a sudden barrage of brimstone and smoldering ore, his geist hurled orb after infernal orb, intent on crushing and incinerating his enemy. Beatrice dodged the boulders and drew her broadsword, watching Futura sunder each stone into pebbles, wafting with nitrogenic resolve. It was a symphony of frost and flame, twin spirits locked in mortal combat. Blood would be spilled. Someone would pay.
“You couldn’t begin to fathom,” Amadeus panted, “why I’m doing this.”
“You’re right. Nothing could justify your actions.”
For a moment, Beatrice lowered her guard, recognizing Victor beneath the fiend’s facade—a moment that could not be taken back. With a wicked grimace, Amadeus dug his blade deep into her chest, lifting her with the hilt of his sword, relishing in every drop of blood, though such brutality failed to hide the flowing tears of a man trapped in half-existence.
Beatrice gripped the blade and pressed down with all the weight she could manage, leveling herself against Amadeus’s raw strength. Anger and purpose numbed the pain, as did shock and endorphins, as some inner force channeled itself through her.
The fiend’s eyes widened. “W-what—?”
Blood trickled down the sword’s hilt. Beatrice’s grip only tightened. “I don’t doubt that you’d destroy me in an instant. But something inside you cries out against that. That’s why you’re crying, Victor.” She conquered her pain, prying the blade loose. “You’re the world’s enemy, like it or not. And that’s why. I’m gonna. Knock your ass. Down.”
With a surge of sudden courage, Beatrice pried the blade free from her chest. In that moment, Amadeus froze in place—as if torn between awe and terror. Beatrice broke his geist’s stance, driving her blade deep into its cotton flesh, gritting her teeth in a dire plunge. Dante prepared an aggressive stance and howled. Salivating like a rabid beast, the geist dove forth, intent on ravaging its opponent. Beatrice raised her sword and let gravity do the work, feeling her blade cut through Dante’s shoulder, grinding against wireframe bone.
Percussions of the soul pounded with her heartbeat as she hewed her way forward, cleaving the geist into oblivion. With a sudden stroke, Beatrice sliced through Amadeus’s flesh, cutting deep across his chest and pallid cheek. He doubled back, clutching his face, as if this was the first time he’d experienced pain of any kind.
Beatrice did not relent. With a swift blow, she cracked her pommel against Amadeus’s skull, only for bits of porcelain to shatter and scatter in the air. At that moment, Beatrice had the fiend at her mercy, her sword pressed against his throat. Futura still burned bright behind her.
Amadeus snarled and seethed, like an adolescent shooter about to fire into a scornful crowd, until he burst into mad laughter. “Fascinating,” he jeered, “this is the first time I’ve been cut so deeply. Go ahead. Kill me. Put Victor out of his misery.”
“You’re such a melodramatic little shit,” Beatrice kept her stance, “wouldn’t expect anything less from you. Is this really what you want?”
Amadeus did not reply, lips twisted in mocking spite. Beatrice raised her blade high as an executioner. She imagined the uncounted lives he’d taken, shadows on the brickwork, casualties dumped into mass graves, and yet, she still saw Victor’s face in the fiend—a sweet kid enduring a mental health crisis. Slowly, her wounds took their toll as she slumped in defeat, blood pooling around her knees. The next thing she knew, Amadeus towered over her.
“We both know you don’t have it in you.”
Beatrice tried to stand, to prove him wrong, but couldn’t even stand. She collapsed in a prone heap at the fiend’s mercy. Then the pain set in. The world began to spin and darken, and yet, nothing happened. Amadeus pressed his blade against her throat, but a glimmer of hesitation shone in his maddened eyes as if he was haunted by unexpected sentimentality. Slowly, he lowered his guard. The last thing Beatrice remembered was the clatter of steel greaves and jackboots as a number of legionaries came to the fiend’s side.
“Bring her onboard,” he ordered.