George Mann - The Executioner's heart

The woman watched, fascinated, attempting to decipher the secrets of the room. Had she sensed that she was not alone? Had she noticed the whirling trail of dust?

The Executioner circled the intruder, intrigued. The woman seemed to radiate life. Her panic and desperation were somehow vital, energising.

She touched the flat of her blade playfully against the woman’s cheek, and then danced away into the shadows. This was her domain: the dead of night, the darkness, the ghosting hours. The woman seemed to recognise this, and it terrified her. She trembled, and the lantern in her hand cast quivering shadows upon the walls and floor, illuminating the myriad clock faces that loomed out from the walls like grinning lunatics.

It was clear the woman had not come here looking for a murderess. There was something else, something she had lost. It did not matter what it was, but the irony of the situation would not be lost on the woman in the moments before she died. She had blundered into a trap of her own devising, walking blindly into the Executioner’s sanctuary. And now the Executioner would take her heart, so full of life, and feel it beat its last in her tightly clenched fist before excising it and adding it to the heap of rotting organs in the corner.

The woman moved suddenly, unexpectedly, flinging the lamp across the room and brandishing her pistol. She squeezed off a couple of shots, which barked and flared in the semi-darkness. The Executioner moved easily, fluidly, and the bullets sailed past, thudding into the furniture close by.

She stepped forward, raising her sword, and plunged it swiftly into the chest of the woman, feeling it slide through soft flesh and snapping bone, exiting through the woman’s back with a spray of dark blood.

The woman emitted a muffled wail as she recognised what had happened, and then crumpled to the floor, the Executioner’s blade still jutting proudly from her chest.

The Executioner knelt, tearing away the woman’s blouse. She ran her finger between the woman’s breasts, measuring her breastbone.

“Veronica?”

She heard the familiar voice echoing from the passageway on the other side of the door.

“Veronica?”

She would have to work quickly. She would not give up this heart.

She set about opening the woman’s chest with her blade, working by the feeble light of the near-extinguished lantern on the floor.

* * *

The ticking of the clocks was a discordant cacophony that echoed throughout the bowels of the ruined hotel, not unlike a flock of birds, each of them chattering at once. Newbury, Bainbridge, and Angelchrist crept on towards it, cautious and alert.

“Veronica?” called Newbury, more concerned with finding her than alerting the Executioner-if the murderess was, in fact, there in the hotel-to their presence.

“Veronica?”

He listened for a response, but there was none, only the constant ticking of the clocks.

“What was that?” said Angelchrist from behind him, startled.

“What?” said Newbury.

“I heard a-” He stopped suddenly, and Newbury heard it too: the breathless wail of a woman in pain.

“Charles, your cane,” said Newbury urgently, holding out his hand.

“My cane?” said Bainbridge, frowning.

“ Your cane , Charles!” snapped Newbury, and Bainbridge reluctantly handed it over.

Newbury hefted it in his right hand, and then dashed in the direction of the sound, the others following in hot pursuit.

The source of the wail was not difficult to ascertain; a moment later Newbury burst into a darkened room, only to be assaulted by the riotous noise of a hundred clocks, each of them holding their own incongruous time.

He took in the scene as a series of snapshots-images that would be forever emblazoned in his mind.

The walls and surfaces were covered in timepieces of myriad shapes and sizes, every available space littered with them. Decrepit furniture was heaped in the corners of the room, and the stench of rotten meat was nearly overwhelming.

At the heart of this, the dark figure of the Executioner was hunched over the still form of Veronica, who was spread out upon the filthy floor, unmoving. The Executioner’s hands were steeped in dark blood, and in one of them she still clutched the pommel of a curving scimitar. The other was buried deep inside Veronica’s chest.

For a moment Newbury hesitated in the doorway, unable to comprehend the sight he was witnessing. Then, overcome by a rage of a ferocity he had never before encountered, he charged at the hunched figure of the Executioner, swinging Bainbridge’s club violently at her head, bellowing in primal fury.

The Executioner shifted, but not in time, and the heavy silver head of the cane connected with her temple, sending her sprawling across the floor. Newbury pressed his advantage, whipping the cane up and around and striking again, this time shattering a rib as he brought it down upon the right side of her chest. He kicked at her, too, but she recovered and she rolled, avoiding his shoe.

The Executioner flipped up onto her knees, swinging her scimitar above her head to fend off another swipe with the cane. He heard Bainbridge and Angelchrist talking in urgent tones behind him, but shut it out. They would see to Veronica while he took care of this woman, this abomination.

He raised the cane and she reacted with terrifying speed, twisting her arm and stabbing at him with her blade. The move was designed to make him fall back, and he was forced to do just that, providing the Executioner with the opportunity to scramble to her feet.

He swung again, and then kicked, causing her to parry on one side and take a blow to the hip on the other. He stepped in, punching out with his left fist, striking her hard across the jaw, and then following through with his elbow.

She grunted in frustration and brought her knee up, narrowly missing his groin, but driving him back again.

Once again she jabbed at him with her sword, then swung it out in a wide arc, as if about to bring it down upon his head. He raised the cane in defence, but she changed the angle of the attack with a sudden twist of her wrist. He was forced to parry with his wounded left forearm, knocking the blade away but crying out in pain simultaneously as the wound was reopened.

He fell back and they circled, sizing each other up.

The Executioner had a feral look in her eyes, and her face was spattered with blood. Veronica’s blood. Newbury growled in animosity. He would end this here and now.

Newbury grasped the handle of Bainbridge’s cane and gave it a sharp twist.

The four thin panels on its shaft levered open, revealing the reinforced glass chamber within. With a whirr, the mechanism began to revolve and a spark of blue lightning flared inside the glass rod.

The Executioner came at him again, and he raised the device, parrying her attack and hoping that her blade would not damage the mechanism as it spun around the generator core. The weapon sparked and crackled as the charge continued to build. Newbury remained on defensive footing, biding his time. He stepped back, circling again, judging each cut and thrust, sidestepping, parrying, waiting. The Executioner was toying with him, waiting for him to make a move, hoping he would overcommit himself and leave himself open to a fatal reply.

He could use that to his advantage.

The electrical hum reached a feverish crescendo, and Newbury saw his opening. He feinted right as if he was overreaching, leaving his left side open, but then twisted suddenly to the left and jabbed the tip of the cane towards the metal brace on the Executioner’s shoulder.

The Executioner, who had by then committed to an attack on the left, had no chance to alter her momentum, and stepped forward into the thrust.