Still not dead! Woot. So, this was a difficult chapter to write. Not entirely sure why, but I got really bogged down. Anyway, again, huge thanks to those who read, review, or follow the story in whatever way. Nice to know you aren't writing to a void. :)
I'm not sure that Ten & Vastra haven't gone a little more antagonistic in this story than I originally intended. I feel like Ten does a lot of moralizing (whether consistent or not) while Vastra is rather pragmatic, and I think those two things would bring them into some conflict. But they love each other underneath it all, and I hope that still comes through at times as well.
Chapter warning for violence and (non-graphic) rape.
The remains of Lord Edwin Burrows' elegant townhouse blazed fiercely. The mood among the bystanders was almost jovial - someone had let it be known that there we no occupants in the house, and so the gawkers could enjoy the spectacle guilt-free.
The mood among the small knot of constables was far more somber. Vastra and the Doctor stood nearby, observing Inspector Griggs as he engaged in a rather spirited discussion with the head of the fire brigade.
"You have the most remarkable propensity to find death and destruction and dive in headlong," Vastra said quietly.
"Oh no, this one was all you, old girl," the Doctor shot back. "I just came by for a cuppa."
"Your mere presence skews the odds towards havoc." Vastra studied the burning house. "I hardly think they were trying to hide the murder. The constables may not have aroused suspicion in the general public, but the murderers certainly could have spotted them."
"Obviously trying to hide something," the Doctor replied. "Wanton destruction just doesn't jive with almost ritual killings in search of ... whatever they were in search of."
Vastra furrowed her brow. "If they know the murders were discovered, and we must assume they do, then they will also know that the house has been searched and the bodies removed. If this was done to cover up some sort of evidence, it must have been something small, something that we might easily have overlooked."
The discussion was cut short when Inspector Griggs waved them over. The fire chief stalked off, pausing only to jerk the bill of his cap in Vastra's direction in a strained attempt at manners. Griggs glowered at his retreating form.
"Damned fool," he grumbled. "Says they saw somebody running off when they first arrived. But did they bother to grab 'im? Course not."
"Failing to delay the prevention of another Great Fire in order to do a job they haven't been trained to do. Disgraceful," Vastra said.
"Exactly!" Griggs barked. Vastra heard the Doctor give a peculiar cough that she suspected disguised a laugh. Griggs, who apparently wasn't listening to a word she said, remained blissfully ignorant.
"Did they get a good look at the suspect?" the Doctor asked after managing to get his coughing under control.
"No, he was all bundled up against the cold, so they say."
"Still, it definitely suggests this was no accident." Vastra gestured to the townhouse. "Were all the bodies removed?"
"We got Lord Burrows out. We were waiting for nightfall to bring all the others down." Griggs spat on the ground. "Damned nuisance. Got the higher ups breathing down my neck now. We need to figure this out, quickly."
"And by 'we' you mean me," Vastra said.
"I know you like to work at your own pace and all, but something mighty strange is going on here."
"I shall do my very best, Inspector."
They started their search near the docks in Limehouse. The opium parlors there had a tendency to regard Europeans with deep suspicion, and Vastra found she might as well have been talking to the ornately paneled walls for all she got out of the first few proprietors.
The Doctor fared little better with the patrons. The few that weren't already lost to the haze of the opium were decidedly unfriendly towards strangers, especially those asking odd questions. After several unsuccessful stops, Vastra called a halt. They stopped in front of a rickety tentement building, Vastra shivering slightly from the biting wind while the Doctor remained impervious as ever.
"We need a new plan of attack."
The Doctor nodded. "What if I go in as a customer?" he suggested.
"I feel that won't play out well. 'Hello, I'm brand new here, fancy a smoke. Oh, and do you have anything extra special grade while I'm at it?' The whole idea screams 'suspicious.'" Vastra drummed her claws irritably. The Doctor pulled a small wallet out of his pocket and studied it, then put it back with a slight shake of his head.
"It's much easier to get information when people can read," he muttered. "Also when you have an actual human along."
Vastra watched the traffic pass by without really seeing it, mind focused on the problem at hand. She was so deep into her thoughts that she almost didn't register a faint scream, drifting on the wind from the direction of the docks.
She frowned, wondering if she had actually heard anything. Tipping her hood back slightly, she listened intently. The Doctor noticed her sudden agitation and perked up, scanning the surrounding area for any signs of trouble.
"What is it?"
"I don't know. Maybe nothing. Maybe trouble."
Vastra's careful attention was rewarded a moment later when she heard another scream, barely at the threshold of her hearing. Vastra only hesitated for a moment before setting off in the direction of the noise. In a place like Limehouse, crime was only too common, and she seriously doubted anyone else on the street would be prepared to go to the aid of a stranger in unknown distress.
They moved carefully but quickly, the Doctor scanning the alleys and doorways around them for potential danger while Vastra focused all her attention in the direction of the screams. The deepening twilight hid them from casual observers, but it also increased the potential for confusion among the narrow, twisting streets. She heard nothing further and began to worry that whatever had happened would be long over by the time they arrived.
As they turned up a side street, a sudden gust of wind carried the strong scent of tobacco toward Vastra. She cocked her head and heard the low murmur of voices up ahead. She and the Doctor exchanged a quick glance and crept forward, keeping to the shadows at the edge of the street until they reached the mouth of an alley. The Doctor peeked around the corner, and she saw his hand clench involuntarily, knuckles whitening. He laid a restraining hand on her arm as she looked over his shoulder.
"Let me distract -"
Vastra cut him off with a low growl, her rage flaring white-hot as she took in the scene. Four human males had a girl cornered in a dark area of the alley. She could see a fifth male holding the girl to the wall, one hand clamped around her throat to silence the screaming, the other pinning her skirts up. The girl struggled weakly against his thrusts, although Vastra could see from the scratches on his hands and face that she had put up quite a fight before being trapped.
The laughter and taunts from the men cut off abruptly as Vastra snarled. She shook off the Doctor's hand and stalked forward, flexing her claws. The first man died quickly, with barely a moment to scream, and Vastra hissed. Too quickly. Her blood lust was rising, and she bared her teeth in a fierce grin as the other men, conscious now of their dead companion, began to fan out around her, drawing their weapons.
The man holding their victim shoved her away as he turned to join the fight. The girl's head struck the wall with an audible crack, and she slumped to the ground, suddenly limp. Vastra saw the Doctor from the corner of her eye as he shifted to the edge of the alley, trying to reach the girl. She backed up in the opposite direction, drawing the pack away from the prone figure.
One of the men lunged forward, swinging his truncheon in a vicious arc at her head. Vastra ducked the blow, stepping inside the man's swing and raking her claws across his belly. He sank to his knees with a gasp, hands going to his stomach in a futile effort to hold his shredded guts in place.
A glancing blow to her shoulder sent Vastra staggering forward, but she recovered with catlike speed and pivoted to the side, flicking out her tongue and opening up a slice along her attacker's neck. He reeled back, stunned, and she could already see faint green lines spiking out along his veins. His limbs gave out a moment later, no longer responding to his brain as his nervous system shut down. She could feel blood dripping down her back where the man had opened up her shoulder, and she knew the pain would come soon enough, but she stayed focused on the fight at hand.
The two remaining men circled Vastra, looking extremely wary. One of them had a sap in his hand, and he began to swing it in a slow arc, gradually building up speed. His ploy might have worked if Vastra hadn't seen his eyes flick briefly to a point over her shoulder. She whirled around. The other man had his hand thrust in his jacket, and she knew instinctively that he was reaching for a firearm of some kind.
She lashed out with her uninjured arm, catching the gunman in an iron grip and hauling him around just as the last man swung his sap with bone-crushing force. The lead-filled pouch caught the gunman full in the side of the face, shattering his skull and lower jaw and spraying a fine mist of blood across the alley. The man wielding the sap didn't hesitate, ignoring his dead companion as he brought his weapon up for another strike. Vastra hurled the body straight forward into her attacker and followed up with a vicious swipe to the face while the man was off-balance.
Windmilling his arms in a desperate attempt to stay upright, the man didn't notice that the fight had brought them back in range of the Doctor and the girl. Still looking dazed, but having apparently regained consciousness, the girl struggled briefly against the Doctor's hold and managed to stretch out one foot. The man's boot caught and he tumbled backward, head striking the wall at an oblique angle that twisted his neck forward unnaturally. Vastra heard a snapping noise and knew the man was dead before he hit the pavement.
The sudden effort appeared to have been too much for the girl, who slumped in the Doctor's hold, eyes rolling back in her head. The Doctor felt at her throat for a pulse, his eyes flicking over the carnage in the alley.
"That was ... efficient," he said quietly.
"Save your moral judgments," Vastra snapped. He stared back at her for a moment, dark eyes unreadable.
"My moral judgments seem to be badly lacking these days," he demurred. "In any case, we need to get this girl someplace safe. She's alive, but weak. We can hardly leave her here."
Vastra nodded. "You do that. I'll ... clean this up."
She might have imagined the Doctor's slight wince. She preferred not to think too hard on it. He gathered the unconcious girl in his arms and left the alley without a backward glance.
Vastra checked over the men quickly to ensure that they were all, in fact, dead. She frowned as she took note of the rather uniform clothing and hairstyles they sported. All wearing similar clothes, and all of Asian descent. She felt an uncomfortable prickling beneath her scales. I don't like coincidences. The men's pockets yielded a few coins and tobacco pouches, but nothing to identify them or tie them to Vastra's murder investigation. Still, she couldn't shake the lingering notion that something odd was occurring.
Although dead bodies were hardly an uncommon find in the underbelly of London, disembowled corpses would probably attract abnormal attention, Vastra realized, not to mention the one she'd poisoned. She wasn't averse to fresh meat, but all it would take would be one late night pedestrian stumbling across the sight of a mysterious figure devouring bodies to send London into a blind panic.
The nearby harbor provided the final answer. Bodies thrown in water had a way of turning up, but Vastra didn't care that they never be discovered, only that the cause of death was no longer obvious when they were. A few weeks of water and river creatures, and they'll just be another of London's commonplace casualties.
She couldn't do much with the blood spatters around the alley, but without superhuman senses like hers, neither could anyone else, so Vastra left Limehouse reasonably satisfied. It was late, and the wind had turned bitter, causing her to shiver and pull her cloak tightly around her.
Vastra wasn't looking forward to dealing with the Doctor. He had at times prevented her from slaughtering innocent humans, and once she calmed down, she generally agreed with him, but they had never seen eye to eye on the treatment of criminals. This version in particular had a tendency to give her a lot of grief over her brand of justice, and while Vastra was quite capable of going toe to toe with the Doctor in a debate about morality, she didn't enjoy it.
She was mildly surprised to reach Paternoster Row and see the lights up in her townhouse. She wasn't exactly sure where one would take an injured girl late at night, but she'd imagined it would take the Doctor a bit longer to find it.
As soon as she stepped inside, however, Vastra stiffened. He wouldn't.
She started towards the office, but a low voice from one of the front bedrooms caused her to redirect her steps. She stopped in the doorway, taking in the sight of the Doctor muttering under his breath as he monitored various vital signs and used his sonic screwdriver to scan the bed's occupant.
"When you said we needed to take her someplace safe, this is not precisely what I had in mind," Vastra said.
The Doctor glanced up. "Oh, good, you're home. I was a little worried she'd wake up with just me here. Didn't think that would go over too well."
Vastra closed her eyes briefly and fought the urge to strangle him. "May I speak to you downstairs?"