Yvette stepped closer to Miss Moore, still shackled to the restraint table, and confirmed her faint pulse and breath. Alive—for now.

The woman’s eyelids fluttered open.

"You… Mr. Fisher?" Moore’s voice wavered with relief. "You saved me. Thank you."

Polite words, yet they sent icy dread down Yvette’s spine. She recoiled, blade and pistol drawn in a heartbeat.

"Mr. Fisher?" Moore echoed, bewildered.

"That sleep spell should’ve kept any human unconscious for hours," Yvette snapped. "What are you?"

A wet, dreamlike laugh bubbled from Moore’s throat. Beneath her corseted gown, flesh rippled and bulged—as if some grotesque inner being strained against a paper-thin shell.

Yvette’s silenced pistol spat a round through Moore’s right temple. Brains and bone fragments painted the wall.

Yet the woman merely swayed. Blood oozed down her face, ignored as raw muscle fibers knit across the gaping wound, leaving a puckered crater. Her body behaved like living clay, organs either absent or rendered irrelevant.

The remnants of Moore’s face stretched into a rapturous smile. "You can’t comprehend, Mr. Fisher. I’ve seen Him—a being beyond our measly existence. His Majesty showed me humanity’s filth… and His mercy. The stars themselves bend to His will! He gifts us transcendence, if we but shed these… inferior forms."

The fireplace erupted in frantic sparks. Moore’s body unfolded. Atrophied legs dangled uselessly as a dozen new limbs sprouted from her torso—arms and legs of mismatched sizes, writhing like a beetle’s legs. Her original arms elongated into chitinous pincers, while a glossy carapace sheathed her torso, muffling the click-click of countless joints.

A guttural voice, half-human and half-reptilian, reverberated: "A paltry sacrifice unlocks perfection. Why cling to feeble limbs and solitary minds? Merge! Multiply! Become—"

Yvette tuned out the rant. Earlier, she’d swapped her crystal rounds for steel-tipped bullets. Now, she smashed a vial of Flame Cloak elixir against her thigh. Liquid fire erupted around her, searing a curl of hair to ash. Channeling the heat into her blade, she ignored the blistering pain.

The hybrid horror scuttled forward, its movements hypnotically fluid. Three gunshots thudded into its mass, each impact amplified by the inferno clinging to Yvette. The creature stumbled but kept advancing—until Yvette’s superheated blade carved a smoking trench from its shoulder to hip.

Foul smoke choked the air as she emptied her revolver into its face and backflipped away, flame-propelled momentum carrying her clear of snapping pincers.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Too close.

A glance confirmed her sword strike had gutted the beast—yet instead of organs, its cavity brimmed with squirming brains recoiling from the light. The monster shrieked, clawing at its seared wound. Charred flesh sloughed away, fresh tissue bubbling forth—but one of its many limbs shriveled in exchange.

Yvette reloaded, mind racing. Ammunition dwindled. Flame Cloak duration: eight minutes remaining. No—this ends now.

Two bullets bought her time to reach the dining room. She barred the heavy oak door, luring the creature into a trap. When it burst through, Yvette upended the enormous mahogany table—a slab of New World hardwood nearly indestructible to mortal tools—and pinned the horror beneath.

"Enjoying the sauna?" she muttered, redirecting her dying flames beneath the table. The stench of roasting chitin filled the room as the monster thrashed, its writhing limbs smashing table legs. Yvette cleaved each reaching appendage, ignoring the sizzling acid splatters eating at her skin.

Three minutes later, flames guttered out. The creature twitched feebly, its regenerative crawl too sluggish. Yvette impaled it with a fireplace poker, then immobilized every twitching fragment with silver cutlery—roasting each fork and knife red-hot to cauterize its unholy vitality.

Only then did she stagger outside, bribing a street urchin with coins to fetch Ulysses. The boy gaped at her burns and bloodied attire but bolted at the promise of more silver.

Back in the dining room, Yvette kept watch over her macabre centerpiece—a multi-limbed abomination skewered by twenty steak knives, its jerking grows weaker by the minute.

Ulysses better hurry. This thing’s still breathing.

Back in the shattered dining room, Yvette slumped against a wall, finally certain the trapped monstrosity couldn’t escape. Only now did the adrenaline fade—and with it, the numbness that had shielded her from pain.

Every inch of her skin burned. Lifting an arm, she saw the creature’s wax-like residue eating into her flesh like acid. She hacked at her sleeve with a dinner knife, but the substance clung like sewer tar. The red welts darkened, withering as if the wax drank her blood. Living tissue only, she noted grimly—her clothes and the wooden floor remained untouched.

I’ll rot alive if I don’t stop this.

Snatching liquor bottles, she doused blades in brandy and scorched them over the hearth. Then she began cutting—not her clothes, but herself. The knives were dull, the agony blinding. Tears and bourbon became her anesthetics. By the time Ulysses found her, her arms and torso were a mosaic of self-inflicted wounds, blood pooling beneath her limp body.

“The viscountess…hypnotized…Moll’s the monster—” she slurred before darkness took her.

Ulysses carried her to a sterile room, barking orders at Winslow. “Surgery, now. And clean this mess before the police arrive.”

Winslow gaped at the carnage. “The creature did this?”

“She did. The toxin required…radical excision.”

They worked through dawn—Ulysses mending flesh, Winslow orchestrating cover-ups. Neither noticed the waxy, starfish-like creature oozing from a guest room into the sewers.

Yvette awoke to honeyed water and Ulysses’ scowl.

“You’ll drink this slowly,” he commanded, spoon hovering.

She flushed, realizing her bandaged state. “I wasn’t crying earlier—”

“Of course not. Merely lacquering my conscience.” His sarcasm softened as he fed her. “Rest. Your heroics depleted more than blood.”

Later, he returned with a feast: tender veau blanc, seared cod gleaming with herbs, a ruby-red jelly quivering provocatively.

“You…cooked?”

“Starving my patient would negate stitching you back together.”

She devoured it, too famished for decorum.

“Protein rebuilds muscle,” he said, watching her scrape the plate. “No arguments.”

Yvette nodded, too grateful to protest. Somewhere between the bourbon, the blood, and his unexpected bedside manner, she’d survive—not just the monster’s poison, but the brutal cure.