Bloody Singer
By Cybra
A/N: The second entry to the "Personification Challenge" that I issued on the Basil's Public Reading Forum. While the other had a more grandmotherly tone to it, this one has a more sinister edge to it. In my opinion, it's the better of the two. Tied into "The Mystery of the Red Violin."
Disclaimer: The Great Mouse Detective belongs to the Walt Disney Company. The Basil of Baker Street Mysteries belong to the late Eve Titus.
I am the Red Violin. Musicians who have coveted me have all come to their doom, for I am the Red Lady of Death.
Giuseppe Stradivari learned this to his great misfortune when he commissioned his brother to make me for his unborn son. But it was not until his wife died and he made a special varnish using her blood that he brought a plague to other musicians. For it was then that that simple yet perfect violin became me.
I heard the wife from beyond the grave, angered at her husband for desecrating her body so. And so I punished the man by taking the life of his son after he tested my strings. If he had burned me then, my work would have been finished. Yet he ordered that I was to be sold.
And so I traveled, punishing those who sought to use me for personal gain. Rich or poor, it did not matter. Some may call it cruel, but in some cases, what I have done is better than simply letting them live. The poor monastery orphan boy certainly did not deserve to be paraded about by that awful man who cared only for the money a prodigy on the violin would earn. Ending his life was part mercy killing.
There have been mistakes. Most recently, an uncle of one victim had sought to use her for fame and fortune. I arranged it so she would become ill, but he strummed my strings one day cheerily and allowed me to strike more directly. Yet I could not undo what I had done to her especially since I thought she would continue with her uncle's dream. How was I to know she would marry and have children? She fought back against her fate but ultimately succumbed. One of my few regrets.
But in all of my years of life, I have only once skipped a potential victim: the son of that accidental victim, Sherringford Basil.
He amuses me. He, like his mother, had absolutely no idea what I was. Even if he did, he probably would have cared not a fig. Instead of pursuing the life of a concert violinist, he chose to cut an entirely new path as a private consulting detective. Meanwhile, I was relegated to mere hobby!
In the early days of his practice, I waited like a spider for when he would give up and take the well-worn path. He had talent; he simply needed to use it. I could make him great. And then I would have him. But to my surprise, he stumbled along his new road, some days barely making the rent by the latest deadline his landlady would give, and never once gave in.
Certainly, he was an oddity that I found very amusing among all of the mice I had come in contact with. And I had thought his mother was stubborn with her desire to fight her inevitable demise.
As luck would have it, his practice actually flourished. I remained a hobby of his rather than any sort of income. Occasionally I would be a prop for costumes, but that was the highest role I ever played in his career.
It led me to conclude that Basil of Baker Street either had a sixth sense about me, or he simply enjoyed me for his own personal pleasure. It was all very well. I could wait for him to slip. He was a rather agreeable possession for me.
When he and that doctor finally learned what I was, he at first was a bit cautious before slipping back into the old routine. At least he shows a little more respect in caring for me. I did not enjoy being sat on that one time even if it was an accident.
But the doctor eyes me with distrust. Ah, he respects my power and even fears it. He sees me as a threat. As he should. I could have easily allowed that man to kill his dear friend before I exercised my power over that covetous soul.
I skipped the boy on purpose. He has done nothing to make me waste my power on destroying him. Besides, he does, as I said, amuse me.
So I shall spare him.
For now.