Chapter 1 – Hide and Sneak
Soundtrack: Red Right Hand – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
23rd of July, 1890.
At half-past ten on an unusually balmy summer's night, the streets of Rotherham were quiet, but not flat-out silent. At this hour, the town's collection of drunks were on their way home from a night on the tiles, and the local lawmen were doing what they could to corral them into their homes or the Black Marias. However, one woman stood out in the gloom. She was garbed with a knee-length dress which featured a shade of red so deep, it looked black under the night sky. Black knee-length boots adorned her stockinged feet, and a single aconite was lodged in the black wide-brimmed hat plastered on her head, which harboured an enigmatic, yet confident face with amber eyes that seemed to glow in the dark.
If a trained eye were to look at her in broad daylight, she would be identified as a person that could only be bred and raised in one location; Hong Kong. Half of her ancestry on both sides hailed from various parts of England, and she was a fluent speaker of the language. However, her mother's maternal family hailed from Hokkaido, and the family name her father had been bestowed with was Mandarin.
The woman strode purposefully down Masbrough Street and turning right at the railway line, caring naught for the people around her as she approached and entered the Rotherham Masbrough railway station. Of course, she'd bought the building out at the start of the year for her purposes, under one of the aliases she had garnered in her twenty-eight years. Whilst she answered to many names, only two of them were names she actually had any regard for. The first of these was a name she solely used for correspondence to her employees in Hong Kong, and the surname came first as the Chinese language dictated.
The second name, however, was English. It too was used for one sole purpose; specifically, it was the name she was called by those people that fell under her personal employ. A smoke-screen to her true identity, even though it was an obvious clue to anyone who was fluent in both Chinese and English. It was this guise that she had used to hide behind since the Tenebrae Club's destruction in October last year.
Her birth name was Qiū Méizhā.
Her nom de plume was Cinder Fall.
"Is tonight t' night, boss?"
Cinder turned to her left as the Rotherham native on her staff approached her. He was dressed like a stereotypical workman of the area; black jeans with steel-capped boots, along with a grey dress shirt with the sleeves scrunched up. His hair, originally alabaster, was showing signs of going grey prematurely, and his thin backside and general odour was indicative of a severe drinking problem.
"Yes it is," Cinder replied in flawless English. "I've set the charge already, and we'll be the ones to contact the authorities when we're finished with the haul."
"We're not stealing Dust or parts from this, are we?", asked the third occupant of the railway master's cottage. She wore a mint-green veil over her black hair, which matched the pant-suit she wore along with a white shirt-waist and a matching pair of riding boots.
"Indeed, Emerald," her employer purred. "We're stealing something far more valuable tonight."
Turning to face both her staff, Cinder gave the next instruction based on her reconnaissance.
"Mercury and Emerald, you are to go to the third carriage along the train once it derails, and find a briefcase in brown leather with the Schnee's family crest printed on it in silver. Take it, and nothing else, from the train. You'll then return from the crash and Mercury will send for the authorities. The train should derail in twenty minutes from now, so get into position."
"Yes ma'am!" and "Got it!" were the respective replies of the thief and the butcher as they departed the cottage and went to their signal switch on lookout.
"All according to plan," Cinder purred in a whisper as she began to go over the plans she had long since written in her diary. "Once we've worked out which SDC-exclusive items are needed for the blueprints, we'll go to the SDC warehouses in Sheffield and Cardiff next month with a shopping list, and use whatever funds we get from selling this place to purchase that warehouse in the Surrey dock at Rotherhithe."
She then smiled nastily as her avarice overrode her composure, her voice shifting to a menacingly quiet hiss. "And then, I'll dispose of those two goons as leavings for the law, and sail off to my homeland to deny the Schnees any chance of pillaging the Dust deposits that my family still owns. I will show the leaders of my homeland what Dust can really do in the right hands; we will get immense amounts of trade with less developed countries with the technology I wish to steal."
Cinder's face and tone darkened at this point, to show the hatred that she had for one wealthy family.
"And then, I will have enough money to buy the Schnees out completely. Fitting revenge for what they did twenty years ago."
5th of September, 1890.
The Rotherhithe docks managed to glisten in the autumn evening, with plenty of Dust-driven boats and harbour lights causing the Thames to glow like it had Chinese lanterns within. Moored to one of the largest piers within was the Autumn Maiden, one of the most advanced ships in England. That last fact was unsurprising, given that it was under the aegis of the Schnee Dust Company.
However, the shadowy lanes and alleys behind the moors were cold and distant, giving a strange dichotomy between the progress of technology and the decay of urbanised life. And it was within one such shadow on the west side of the Canada Docks, nestled within a small laneway that the Deal Porter's Way separated from the Autumn Maiden's berth, that four young, adventurous women awaited the arrival of their quarry – with varying degrees of patience.
"You said they'd arrive here at seven, right Weiss?"
"Ruby," Weiss Schnee whispered forcefully from behind a wooden crate on the right, "please keep quiet. I didn't say they'd get here at seven; I'd said that the security force breaks for dinner at seven. If there's anything planned, it'll happen after that point."
"Sorry," Ruby Rose guiltily replied from her post within a barrel on the opposite side.
"It's alright, Ruby," Yang Xiao Long whispered from behind Ruby's barrel. "I know what it's like to be kept in the dark on the job. Just follow Weiss's lead and we'll be right."
"Thanks, Yang," Ruby whispered back. "I know Weiss is being professional. Same as Blake up on the rafters."
Sure enough, Blake Belladonna was deathly silent as she overlooked each of the four entrances to the docks, with Gambol Shroud hidden beneath her leather jacket. Yang Xiao Long, meanwhile, watched for any movement behind the four women, crouched behind the barrel her half-sister was sequestered within. Crescent Rose was in carbine mode beneath Ruby's cloak, and Yang's gauntlets had been donned before the four left the Snow Castle. Weiss, meanwhile, gripped Myrtenaster tightly as she trained her eyes on the north-western side of the docks, which had the least number of defences – and therefore the highest risk of infiltration. Even though Blake's better than anyone possibly can be at scouting in the dark, Weiss reasoned, it wouldn't hurt to have an extra pair of eyes on the lookout for our targets. Two minutes later, Weiss's instincts were proven right. She spied a young woman with tanned skin crouching behind a stack of crates at the very entrance she'd been watching.
"Gypsy spotted on far left," Weiss uttered quietly. A second later, Blake threw Yang a thumbs up, and Yang nodded to Weiss.
Good; Blake won't lose track of her now, Weiss observed confidently. As she shifted her gaze towards the place Emerald had hidden within, Blake noticed a second figure creeping along the pier from the north-eastern side. She leaned down to Yang, holding up a trilby cap and pointing to the location.
"Magsman approaching from far right," Yang hissed to Weiss, who nodded sharply.
"Very well," she whispered back. "Blake will keep an eye on them both, but we'll need to wait until the guards leave … which should be in six minutes, on my watch. Got that, Blake?"
Yang looked up, then nodded back at her employer. Weiss smiled and turned to face the pair, who definitely lived up to their reputation for professionalism and affability.
"Alright. It's now a game of hide and sneak."
Merely half a minute later, Weiss got pelted with a crumpled piece of paper from above. Taking the paper, Weiss read a missive that bore Blake's handwriting.
One more joke like that from you, and I'll scar your other eye.
Weiss smiled warmly at Blake's faux threat. My crabby tabby loves me too much to do something that cruel to me, she joked to herself.
It was another four minutes before the bell was rung for dinner, and the workers departed their posts for the Leadbelly's bar on the northern edge of the area.
"Ruby," Weiss commanded gently, "stay with me, and keep one hand under your cloak. Blake, you'll take the lead without Gambol Shroud drawn; Yang, you're on point. Move out."
Blake slid down the drain pipe next to Yang, then moved to the front of the group. Ruby jumped out of the barrel and did a three-point landing next to Weiss. She stood in a hunched position, with her left hand behind her back and beneath her cloak as ordered. Yang got to her feet, and completed the diamond formation.
Blake watched as Emerald and Mercury met along the bridge that straddled the entryway to the quays, then walked calmly towards the western lane. The secretarial ninja held her hand up in a clenched fist, and the other three girls crouched behind the crates Weiss had been using. Not two seconds later, the pair of marks turned towards the pier halfway along the western edge. As soon as they hit the pier, Blake began to move forward, signalling the other three to follow closely.
After they crossed the road, Blake led the team into a hedgerow on the right of the docks, and pulled out her binoculars while the other three crouched still and blended in to the scenery. What she saw beggared belief; instead of releasing the ship from it's moorings, the pair were holding brushes that were loaded with red paint. Emerald spent the next minute copying a design that Mercury held in his hand onto the ship's gangway. From what she could see, it looked like an eye on its side, within two concentric circles. Five short lines fanned out from the "bottom" of the eye, and three more extended from the inner circle – like the cardinal directions on a map.
Once Emerald was done, she and Mercury walked to a waiting horse, and made a beeline for where the Thames met the Canada docks, with Blake crouching down to deliver her report to her employer.
"All they did was paint a weird-looking pattern on the gangway, then they went north-west. Looked like a eye on it's side, with two concentric circles around it and eight lines jutting from it."
Weiss looked as perplexed as Blake felt at that point.
"What?!", she hissed. "Why on earth would they paint a strange mark on a ship? They could've stolen it from the guard's noses before now."
"They're marking it so others can steal it, I think."
All three heads turned to Ruby.
"I mean," she continued to whisper, "they'd stand a better chance of escaping if they had more people. Therefore, it stands to reason that they're leaving a sign for some hired goons to secure the ship for them, while they ready their belongings or something."
Weiss and Blake exchanged surprised glances, then nodded. "That makes sense, Ruby," the former replied. "In the face of this logic, you'd probably suggest guarding the ship and protecting it from all comers, right?"
Ruby nodded. "Yeah – or at least, until the guards return from their dinner break."
Weiss found herself agreeing with the younger woman's assessment. Even though she now oversaw the funding of the Schnee Dust Company's security team and led the investigators while Jonathan Strauss dealt with training and assigning the guards, Weiss hadn't had the years of field experience her employees had. Blake was better than any human could be at stealth, and Yang had long since proven herself to be equally strong and intimidating. But now, Weiss knew that she'd found a great field commander and strategist in Ruby Rose; with her knowhow and resources backing the fledgling team, she now felt more confident in their chances of preventing a robbery.
"Very well. Blake, get into the trees and keep an eye out for our marks on the southwest entrance. Yang, you and I will stand on the gangway and keep guard. Ruby, get into the crow's nest with your elephant gun out, and prepare to cripple anyone who dares board the ship."
A/N: I've been waiting a long time to finally get this one off the ground. Here is the fifth installment in the Belladonna Lilies AU, picking up directly after the main fic's conclusion.
I will point out that the aconite stands for misanthropy in the language of flowers. I picked that flower because I couldn't find one that represented prejudice, and the alliterative title appealed to me.
EDIT: Thanks to the reviewer who pointed out that Qiu is a more realistic name than Qiuji as far as Chinese surnames go. I've gone and fixed that mistake.