There truly is no rest for the wicked…
A cold wind brushed over the woman and her shoulders rose as a faint chill curled down her spine—her cloak billowing around her as though it were a shadow attempting to swallow its bearer before she pulled it close to her form once more. The moon remained vacant from sight beyond a shroud of thick clouds and she blended in well with the surrounding darkness as she tailed after her current targets from a distance.
Experience had taught Nicole that the more capable, the more dangerous, and the more organized her opponents were, the more akin they were to a persistent weed: One could mow them down and tear them apart all one wished, but unless they were pulled by the root they would flourish anew with stubborn resolve. The lot she now pursued was a fine example, for she had only been away from London for approximately two weeks and they were already more active than when she had left them—if the copies of The Times a pawnbroker in her neighborhood kept were anything to go by. The methods of disposing of their victims varied, but their strategy for capture—as well the commonalities of their targets—remained constant. Always children or young, beautiful women drugged and dragged off into the night. Stemming the frequency of such incidents had been even more gradual than discovering that they were all connected: The group's springing back so quickly only helped confirm her already solidified theories of the cases being held under a powerful and intricate nexus.
The abductor of a currently inert maiden hefted against one of his shoulders—a working girl of perhaps fourteen years—walked down the quiet streets in a brisk and careful fashion. He was observant, Nicole could tell, but her stealth had yet been bested. Since arriving to London some great deal of time ago, she had devoted herself to learning every street, every alley, and every cornerstone of the city to a point where she could guide her quarry through its labyrinth and corner them with relative ease. Not that night, however: That night she would stick to her hiding places and allow her quarry to guide her. If she wanted to guarantee the girl's safety she would have to act before they ventured to wherever the man went to conspire with other boors; however, she would follow for some time and at the risk of being outnumbered if it meant learning of such a place. If she was not lead directly to the person conducting the mass of kidnappings then in the least she might find an intermediary to interrogate.
Couldn't be typical black market dealers, she mused—concealed behind the corner of a pewtersmith's shop as she watched him cross over to the side of the street which bordered the Thames, Not even their underlings would stray this far from the slums otherwise. Though still surrounded by many of the poorer infrastructures of the city, they weren't very far off from the stores and dwellings of many of its middle class citizens.
There was, without doubt, a great divide that separated the East and West Ends of London—one beyond the meanings of wealth and status and that only an exceptionally rare few from either world were allowed to cross. The privileged, the well-learned, and often the stubbornly naïve stood on one side: Those that scrounged amid the filth and grime, fought for their survival, and knew all too well the darker truths of man stood on the other. Nonetheless, it wasn't impossible for a border-crosser to be responsible for disturbing the lives of those in the opposing realm. Just because people had power didn't always mean they had come to such heights by earning it.
Only after the figure had vanished over the edge of the street down to the lower walkway that leveled with the river's currently low tide did she briskly cross the road herself. From above, she watched him walk some distance further before vanishing into the entrance of an old sewage tunnel. It would have to be old, given its location: Old, and long since abandoned. Ever since the Great Stink that occurred a near decade before her time such tunnels had fallen out of use. It had become a matter of public safety to close them off and build anew, even though to that day impurities continued to pollute the Thames and there were still some channels that ran far too close to the dwellings of those in the East End. It was much better than what it had once been, she had been told, yet many still found well to stay away from whatever miasma lingered within the old passages. Clearly those she pursued found purpose in society's aversion of them.
Once more she allowed him to fall briefly from her sight in order to follow his path without being seen—edging to the lip of the tunnel with her back pressed against the stonework. A faint shaft of light grew from within—likely the dim light of a lamp—and she could just make out a trio of silhouettes struck against the opposing wall inside. Excluding their captive from the shapes, that meant there were at least two adversaries. The slosh of feet shuffling through shallow water rebound off the brick and mortar until the pair came to a halt before one another.
"A righ' young an' pretty fing, isn' she?" echoed the lantern bearers voice, rough and worn as though having breathed in smoke for a grave deal of his life. The shadow of a hand rose to cup the shadow of a cheek as the girl was scrutinized by him. "A bi' too thin, bu' I sup'ose they all 're."
"One o' the late nigh' stragglers from the fact'ries," the first stated. "Funny 'a they linga' when they ain' even gonna be paid for the day's load by stayin' ter fish the work."
There was some silence as the other continued his examination still, as though the girl were little more than a slab of meat strung up for market. A swift urge to swoop down upon the men for their perverse treatment of one who had only recently begun to bloom into womanhood nearly overtook Nicole, but she reigned back her temper and the hand with laced so tightly around the hilt of her blade. A little longer: She would have to wait a little longer before acting or she might injure the girl, loose what small lead she now had, and put herself at risk all in a single moment.
"Three guineas an' a 'alf-crown ough'a cover 'er."
"Not on ya life, ya bug 'unter: I've been paid better. Las' time i'twas four wif anofa 'alf-sovereign for deliv'ry."
"An' t'nigh' ya get three," retorted the former. "I'm only the middle an' I only judge quality: I don' make the prices."
Naturally… Of course if anyone from the West End was overhead of these incidents they wouldn't force themselves into any direct relation with them so long as they didn't have to—that or they were terribly ill of mind… It was too much to hope such a feat could be solved so easily, but it didn't put an in-between out of use even if he ranked low within the criminal syndicate's hierarchy. She would comb through however many of them remained if she had to in order to uproot the lot.
Eventually the pair's haggling and bickering dwindled to an end—with the price slightly increased at the completion of the deal. With no more business to keep him there the girl was handed off and her abductor stepped back out into the open, counting the coins within his palm.
There was no time to register an inkling of shock as Nicole's spadroon pierced through his chest the second he rounded the tunnel's entrance.
"You lot must have some nerve about you to begin hunting so early in the night. Not all of London is asleep quite yet," she voiced in a dangerously low octave, striding within the sewage channel—the bottom of her cloak and skirt as well as her boots soon becoming soaked as she stepped within the unmoving stream trapped inside. Blood danced in a wicked arc before diffusing into the murky water as she swiped her blade through the air. "I suppose it's a good thing I come to work early myself."
No sooner had she revealed herself that the small light of the lamp was extinguished, dropped carelessly with a loud splash and clatter that almost drowned out her words. Only what little light streamed from the world outside pushed against the encroaching darkness. The girl was held up by the waist within the other criminal's grasp and his fist clenched and unclenched at his side—as though debating whether or not to draw out a weapon. Noting this, Nicole kept her free hand close to her holstered pistol as well.
"Who… Who do ya fink ya ar'?!" he seethed, taking a step further back into the recesses of the tunnel.
"What use are introductions to a dead man?" she riposted. It felt mechanical, as if she were reciting from a script or novel, but her ebbing contempt helped the taunt's authenticity. Usually she wasn't one for such remarks, but if she wished to acquire information about the group she needed him to know she meant business and wasn't a force to take lightly. She needed him to be afraid of whatever pain she could inflict. "Let's make a deal," she continued, her steps forward outpacing his steps back, "Give me the child and answer what questions I have for you, and in return I won't carve you as a butcher might his beef."
It came as no great measure of surprise when, instead of complying, he tore a knife from his hip and held it threateningly towards the girl that hung limp across his other arm. "Stay back! If'n ya wont the girl t' live, drop the sword an' stay back or I'll—" As he moved she mirrored his act with her pistol, and at the sight of its barrel aimed toward him he fell silent once more.
"Which do you honestly believe will be faster?" she questioned, "Your knife slicing through her neck or my bullet plunging through that thick skull of yours? I assure you that at this range it's impossible for me to miss my mark." He said nothing, but the flicker of doubt within the bounder's glare was all she needed: Without further hesitation, she changed her aim by a fraction and fired a single round into her opponent's leg. A primal scream was absorbed by the overpowering rupture of the gunfire and the flat ringing of her ears. Collapsing on his injured leg, both his knife and his captive hastily abandoned as quivering hands hovered uncertainly above the wound, he continued to cry out—shouting obscenities at her all the while. Ignoring his agonized tantrum, Nicole looked over the girl's now drenched form briefly: Still unconscious, but blessedly unharmed.
The gun clicked in her grasp as its cylinder rotated into place to fire the next round, but she kept her trigger-finger steady. "That was just a warning shot," she intoned. "Devious as your senior seems to be, I would've imagined him to have hired underlings with a bit more stamina. Which now brings us to the trust heart of the matter: Who are you working for, and what do they intend to gain through these kidnappings? Remember to be careful with how you answer."
Either way he was a dead man, but as least she could end this as swiftly and painlessly as possible so long as he was willing to oblige her demands. Her face kept mostly hidden by the hood of her cloak and the cover of nightfall, she made it difficult for anyone to learn her identity. All the same, however, letting him live was a grave risk—on multiple accounts. There was the faint chance he'd scurry back to whatever hole he crawled from and never be heard again, yet greater stood the chances of his continued crime, of his seeking revenge, or of his informing his superior or the Yard of her involvement. If she killed a man who wished to cleanse himself anew, that was her sin: If she spared his life only for another to be taken by his hands, knowing fully well the consequences, it would be just as much her actions to blame. Of the two, the latter felt like the lesser of burdens…
Silence had fallen heavily between them. For a moment, the vigilante wondered if she would have to push him further in order to get him to talk. If not for the look of fear and uncertainty in his eyes she might have shot at him again or struck him with her sword, but in that same look she could tell such wasn't needed.
Her intuition proved true as he averted his eyes to the ground and released a hopeless, aching sigh before speaking. What she was not prepared for was the sudden shadow that leapt upon him from further within the tunnel and thrust a drop-point dagger through his neck—the bare tip exiting the opposite side.
Blast! Recovering from her initial surprise as the intermediary's body slumped the rest of the way to the ground, she grit her teeth and began to sprint forward. A pair of arms suddenly took her from underneath her own and locked her in place, managing to knock both weapons from her as they reached out from behind her.
The first attacker—a tall figure with wild locks of dirty blonde hair and darkened, crazed eyes to match—wasted no time in charging at her with his knife aimed for her chest. Unable to relent for a second herself, she swung her left leg up high to fend him off while craning her hands back to grab his companion by the head and rake her nails along his flesh. She winced as a sharp sting cut across her shin as it was nicked by the blade while a contained garble of pain resonated in her ears.
The latter's grip slackened, but not enough to release her until she stomped her foot back down on top of his own. The instant she was free she dropped low to the ground and shoved her weight forward once more, capturing the former by the leg and knocking him off balance. As she pressed his knee against her abdomen in a stubborn hold the rest of him fell in the other direction.
It went without saying that the pair wasn't there by coincidence. Her absence in London may have drawn them back out, but it had done nothing to prevent them from taking precautions when they chose to come back. See what happens when you don't deal with every last weed? she chided herself, spinning upon her heel. You come back home to find they're even worse than when you left them.
From the corner of her eye she caught sight of where the fallen dagger had clattered—at the edge of the water with a scuff mark along the wall it had ricocheted off of. She dove for it no sooner that the boor still standing unsheathed his own and sprung after her. Staying low and rolling forward, her hand found the weapon's hilt. Too late. Too late to dodge or counterattack, but she could redirect the strike elsewhere to avoid a more grueling injury. Forcing herself to stand Nicole met her opponent's attack head on and brushed the dagger off its course—the cruel metal finding home in her shoulder rather than her bosom.
A harsh yelp slipped from her lips as she kept him trapped before her, gripping his equipped hand by the wrist. Hazel irises met ones of a dark chocolate as she swallowed down her pain. She lashed against him with her acquired blade: A rush of scarlet spurted from the laceration sliced across his throat to stain her face and clothes.
The other dagger still embedded in her flesh, she shoved the body aside with a terse grunt and left it to its last moments choking on its own blood. The man remaining was already back on his own feet and gave no room for rest as he attacked her with a vengeance. Sidestepping his charge and knocking his punch away from her, she allowed him to thrust his own force into empty space. Down he went again.
She pounced. A knee pressed against his side and a leg wrapped around his shoulder and under his arm to keep him pinned to the ground, she sat upon his shoulder blades and kept his face trapped beneath the shallow water. His panicked, writhing mass was contrast to her stoic, stationary figure. A minute passed and he began to grow weaker; three minutes went by and he had stopped moving; more than five minutes passed and she was certain he was dead...
Moderate, tedious breathes left her as she remained still. Fingers lightly twitched around the curls of hair laced between them as she continued to hang on to the scalp, examining her work. As adrenaline left her agony filled its place and she reached up to clutch the dagger. She could still move her arm just fine—if not without some discomfort—and it was closer to her ribs: It was likely it was stuck in muscle alone rather than having severed any ligaments, good fortune that. Only the most rudimentarily of thoughts as that went through her mind until a white moth tickled her skin with its wings as it came to rest on her thumb; fluttering gently, hypnotically, as it moved along the hand near her wound.
"Domine Iesu, dimitte nobis debita nostra, salva nos ab igne inferiori, perduc in caelum omnes animas, praesertim eas, quae misericordiae tuae maxime indigent," Nicole whispered in soft prayer once she found the air to do so. "Amen…"
Shooing away the insect, she carried out the last of her tasks with routine fashion: Tearing apart strips of cloth from the drowned victim's jacket in order to bind her injuries, disposing of her opponent's weapons by tossing them into the Thames while recollecting her own, and dragging the bodies of the four deceased men individually to hide them elsewhere. Were it not for her arrangements with the Undertaker, she would've left them for the high tides of the river to carry off: As it was, placing them out of the water's reach while out of the public eye proved difficult. Fortunately, she managed to find a stairwell deeper within the tunnels—a shaft of light breaking through from above undoubtedly from where the ambusher that had killed the intermediary had left the entrance partially open. Some of the lower stairs were damp but not all, and none were likely to search for them in such a forsaken place. They could be recollected easily so long as traffic was avoided.
There was much that sickened her of her current thoughts and actions. There had been a time when she had left the bodies of her targets where they dropped: Now there was the matter of hiding and reporting them to that madman, which somehow felt far more deceitful and vile. Would it really be such a bother to the Undertaker if a coroner were to see the remains first? She could find no reason for his wishing to help her by disposing of the corpses in secret, and surely fascination or twisted pride meant nothing if it placed him at risk of execution as an accomplice by doing such. He never really answered her when she demanded an explanation, and thus she had given up on questioning him over it altogether even as a sense of haunting dread lingered over her. Still, there was little to be done: Beyond whatever sense of 'amusement' he claimed to reap from their acquaintanceship, there was nothing else she could think of that he would want from her enough to keep her identity a secret between them. At least he only requested it of her every now and then if she could do so…
As she hauled away the last body, she looked over the man as best she could within the darkness. His dagger and the one of his companion had been no poor instruments, even if having a firearm would've done them better in the end. They were well-cared after, cruelly sharpened, without a trace of rust or wear: The pair themselves were stronger—and better-fed—than many of the usual bruisers walked the streets. It was more than likely that they were hired killers, lying in wait in the event the transaction between the intermediary and kidnapper failed. Whoever is behind this, she mused, wanted to guarantee all remained innominate.
A sharp sting in her leg as she moved instructed her to hurry off with the child before someone else stumbled upon the scene and she tore away the useless bits of cloth shredded from where the knife had cut through. "I didn't imagine I'd spend tomorrow afternoon sewing up holes in my stockings…" Nicole uttered under her breath with a sigh, kneeling to the ground to wash her face and neck clean of the blood that clung there.
The head cradled within her lap stirred as the girl murmured upon her return to consciousness: The tender hand caressing dark locks pulled away as the latter sat up, rubbing tired eyes. "Where… where am I?" the youth questioned in a soft voice before shivering against the cold night air. "It's freezing… Why am I soak'd t' the bone?"
"You can blame it on a bloody bounder that tossed his bath water out a second-story window," a warm voice chuckled in her air.
A doe-like stare blinked in surprise before meeting Nicole's own, the second of the two maidens giving the former a small, reassuring smile. Nicole allowed the girl a moment of silence to take in her surroundings as she adjusted her cloak to be certain the stains that remained on her clothes were kept out of sight—the sewage tunnel and the Thames replaced by several crates stacked by the back entrance of a coffee house, and echoed drips replaced by a hound barking in the distance.
The girl timidly distanced herself and asked shyly, "I'm sorry, bot where ar' we? I can' remember anyfing. Las' I recall I was leavin' work, an' then—" She froze mid-sentence and her look of confusion gave way to panic. Snapping her gaze left and right around the cobblestone at their feet, her voice rose with her nerves, "Me dinner pail—'ave yous seen it? I 'ad it wif me—righ' in me hand!" Though truly a minor thing—any tobacco box found on the streets made a fine substitute—she seemed near tears over the matter, though Nicole found it more likely that her sorrow stemmed from a multitude of reasons based on her gangly, undernourished appearance and what she had overheard from the men of her capture. When anyone bottled that much anxiety inside it only took another small push to tear them apart…
"I'm afraid not," Nicole answered, shaking her head sadly. "I just saw you take a tumble." It was likely gone by now: Stolen, kicked away, or currently rolling down some alley. The girl seemed to know that much as well, for her expression grew even grimmer.
Best not wait then… Nicole thought with a bit of quiet mirth as her hand wriggled within her skirt pockets and withdrew a plain, draw-string purse the size of her palm—muffled clinking coming from within it from its contents hitting against one another. "Now, don't look so disheartened," she chided lightly, taking the girl by the hand with her fingers overlapping the other's own as she made them curl around the purse in acceptance. "I'm certain that whatever it is that's troubling you will turn out alright in the end." Harrowed eyes lowering to the object in her grasp, the girl raised a curious brow and opened it. The eldest watched in calm content, an unpreventable smirk twitching faintly at the corner of her lips, as the youth's face gradually grew brighter.
If such was the price those swine had marked on the girl's life, then Nicole saw no reason for it to go to waste and be buried with them. It was better the child have it as compensation for all they put her through and the Hell they had nearly thrust her in—even if she didn't know the circumstances that had passed during her torpid state.
"Consider it a blessing from the Lord to aid you in your struggles," Nicole cut the other off with a wave of her hand before the girl could speak. Helping her to her feet, the young woman placed her hands upon the latter's shoulders in the gentle, guiding manner. "Come now, dear. You lead the way and I'll take you home. It isn't safe for one your age to be out so late."