Veronica finally decided to get her handler, Frankfort, up to speed on how, when and why she went missing to give birth to me. As far as I could tell from their discussion she had figured something out with Veronica having to tell her – but the details remained a mystery to her the entire time.

It was a curious story, a brush with fate that saw her meeting Damian and forming an illicit relationship despite strict rules against that type of behaviour within WISA and the royal organization that preceded it. One thing led to another and she got knocked up. She worked several missions whilst suffering from the symptoms before taking a chance and going off-grid.

She stayed at the manor for a few months until I was born, before promptly packing up her belongings and returning to WISA with an alibi about being caught behind enemy lines. The agreement was simple. She’d stay the hell out of Damian’s way to keep WISA from finding out, and he would take charge of raising me.

With that foundation work finished, I prodded her for information about what WISA was doing during all of this chaos. Frankfort was the first one to open up with a broadside about how stupid she thought everyone else at the agency was being.

“They’re a bunch of feckless good-for-nothings! All of that talk about maintaining the public peace meant nothing in the end. They’re all too worried about maintaining their position and getting into the government’s good graces, especially now that Welt’s taken over. I knew they were dragging their feet but this level of boot-polishing astonishes me regardless.”

Veronica rolled her eyes, “What’s new?”

“Foot dragging?” I asked.

Frankfort grumbled wearily, “Slow-walking investigative steps that needed to be done, having open discussions at high levels about what to do ‘if’ the Compromise was shredded and the royal family repowered, and you don’t have any idea how hard it was to get permission to pursue Welt directly. It’s a miracle from the Goddess herself that we even got that arrest warrant.”

Even when the corruption and criminality were right in front of them – these types of government organizations were normally conservative in nature. They were hedging their bets on Welt’s success. I could imagine them popping the corks and having a celebration as we spoke. They would be counting their chickens before they hatched.

This was the easy part. The hard part was what happened when the public reacted to the news of their democratically elected government being ousted and superseded by a noble who thought he knew better than everyone else. The fight had left a lot of them after years of civil war and the trauma it elicited on recollection, but there were still a lot of very angry, very heavily armed citizens in Walser.

“It’s good that I wasn’t relying on WISA to solve all of our problems, then. Veronica – do you know where Welt is hiding right now?”

She grimaced, “I’ve been running back and forth across the entire bloody country looking for him. It’s thanks to my atrocious luck that I haven’t even caught a whiff of him yet. I have a few buildings owned by his company left to investigate.”

“Which ones?”

Veronica proceeded to list five different locations of interest around the capital city. Now that Welt was directly involved in the running of government and manipulating the royal family, he needed to be close at hand to issue his orders. The last one caught my attention though, entirely because of where it was located.

“What is the ‘Burnley Tower’ exactly?”

“It’s an old sanatorium. It saw a lot of use during the plague, but after that, the facilities became too outdated and expensive to maintain – so it was left to rot,” Veronica explained.

As far as I could recall that area of the coast was a beautiful but unstable location. Aside from the sanatorium, there were very few permanent structures built there out of fear of erosion eventually causing them to collapse. The people in Walser had the foresight not to build their towns and villages on the edges of a crumbling cliff. A building tall enough to be called a ‘tower’ would have to be pushed back further inland.

“I have a gut feeling that Welt’s been there, although if you ask me, I think he’s hiding somewhere in the city by now. It could be helpful to go there and see what comes out when we shake the tree.”

Veronica was doubtful about my proposal.

“I can’t see how that will do us any good at this point. Welt’s already sunk his claws in high society and the royal family. They’ll all fall in line, the warrant will be rescinded, and he’ll get a hero’s welcome into the capital. It’d be faster to wait for him to gloat and shoot him dead then and there.”

“Faster, but not necessarily safer. We’ve both seen first-hand how dangerous his new private army is. We won’t be able to get close to him if he’s being cautious. He’ll stay out of the way and let the new King do the talking, and surround himself and his conspirators with as many soldiers as he can muster. We need to understand how he’s creating them.”

“We already do. That demon we killed? He used his connections in the military to steal material from the body and smuggle it out. Then he worked with a biologist named Sloan to refine that bodily fluid into a potent drug that can be injected into the bloodstream.”

“They’re injecting themselves with demon blood?” I said in disbelief, “There’s a new fool born every minute in this country.”

“That supernatural durability and magical power can’t be achieved without it. As far as I can tell it also provided some kind of healing properties to the killers. I spoke with one – they drugged him to hell and back, filled his head with suggestions, but they lured him in by promising a cure to a terminal condition he was suffering from.”

The sting in the tail was obvious, but they would hide it from people who weren’t already in the tank for a monarchist restoration.

“In the long term, finding where they’re producing these soldiers and preventing them from making more would be to our benefit,” Frankfort suggested, “We cannot assume that all of the pieces will fall into place without the appropriate preparations.”

As much as I liked to tell myself that I always prepared before launching my retaliatory attacks, the reality was that I found no time to make those preparations. More than once I was flying by the seat of my pants, trying to plug gaps with all four of my limbs.

“Will this place be heavily defended?” I inquired.

“Not on the outside, but that may have changed with Welt’s assertion of control. We’ll have to prepare for a fight regardless. Is it only us?” Veronica scanned the office in search of any other people, “Because we’ll be badly outnumbered like this.”

“I’m afraid that-”

Before I could finish explaining, the door swung open and Claude swaggered through, with Max, Adrian and Samantha following him in a single-file line. Veronica’s face dropped like a rock.

“We’re back!” he declared.

“-I’m afraid that they may not be much use in a fight.”

Frankfort was equally unimpressed with the cohort of teenagers that I was being forced to drag around with me. Hearing Max, Adrian and Claude immediately begin bickering over some stupid bullshit that happened while they were away only worsened her first impression of them.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Samantha sighed, “I got the stuff you wanted. Some fresh clothes, food, what have you.”

She placed the bag onto an empty desk for later and approached the killer huddle at the back corner of the office space. The bickering boys stayed well out of our way for the time being.

“I thought you were only going out for some fresh air. Why is your mother here?”

I nodded; “I intended to swing by the WISA office and see what was going on, but the moment I approached the block an almighty gunfight started happening inside. You can probably infer what was going on based on our new guests.”

“Oh. I see. Well, I suppose it can’t hurt to have some extra hands to help out.”

Frankfort scoffed, “Veronica – do you honestly think that this is a good idea? They’re children for goodness sake!”

“I agree, but I’ve also learnt that my troublesome daughter loves to blackmail me by using her own safety as a bargaining chip. Short of tying her down like a hog nothing is going to stop her from meddling, and I doubt that would stop her anyway.”

“And her being willing to kill a man with a shotgun?”

“I have no idea why. She won’t tell me.”

Veronica and Frankfort didn’t have a choice. They were dead women walking with the entire weight of WISA bearing down on them and a vengeful man in charge who wanted them dead, almost entirely because of their ability to interfere with Welt’s monarchist restoration. I was one of the few friends that they had left.

“The long and short of the matter is that I’m your ticket out of here. I can smuggle you wherever we have to go and utilise our family’s resources to get what we need in turn. Without a government intelligence agency at your disposal, a gun-toting noble is second best.”

Frankfort cupped her face, “I can’t believe this is where my career led me...”

“If you were being serious about keeping the peace, then this will be the biggest test of your will so far. It’s up to you whether those words were empty posturing or a declaration of intent. This isn’t about status or keeping your station.”

She stood up and stared me down, “Don’t go doubting my sincerity. I’ve been protecting Walser from people like Welt for far longer than you’ve been alive. There isn’t a single soul in this country who is willing to give more than I.”

To show her determination – she approached the weaponry laid out on the table and perused the selection. It was a mixture of whatever I could find on the estate and purchase through my proxies and servants, along with enough ammo to kill every person that Welt sent at us. She settled on a pair of pistols. It never hurt to have a backup.

Veronica moved us right along, “So, should we head to that tower and see if we can shake loose some helpful information? Better yet – it may be where they’re conducting this abominable research.”

“That sounds agreeable to me,” I nodded. My eyes turned to Samantha and the others, who were listening in to the discussion now that the argument was over. I suddenly regretted relenting and allowing them to come with me. What the heck were they going to do in this scenario exactly?

“As for you lot, I don’t know what to say. You wanted to come with me, but I’m expecting you to become involved in the fighting.”

“I know how to shoot a gun,” Adrian offered unhelpfully.

“Standing on a platform and blasting a clay plate is a different world to fighting real people who want to murder you,” I replied, having belaboured this exact point several times before, “Those targets don’t shoot back – for one thing.”

“Are all children this bloodthirsty these days?” Veronica joked, “You shouldn’t be so willing to go down that path.”

Adrian groaned, “Don’t you start giving me that talk too! Do you have any idea how patronizing it sounds? Maria, you’ve been killing baddies left and right since you showed up at the academy. Why can’t I?”

Less patronizing to hear from an adult woman than when it came from me I assumed.

“There are two good reasons,” I responded, “First, as I said, you don’t have any experience in what it’s like to take part in a real firefight. It’s not about pointing a gun and pulling the trigger – it’s everything else you have to worry about while doing it. Second, what good would it serve to have you or the others endanger yourselves for a lack of perceived benefit?” I pointed to Claude and Max; “Are you two going to jump in front of a bullet as well?”

They both shook their heads. They wanted nothing to do with that.

“So why did you agree to bring us with you?” Adrian asked.

“Because I would never hear the end of it if I didn’t. I told you it was better to go somewhere safe while the trouble blew over, but you wouldn’t listen. This is exactly why. Getting your hands dirty is only liable to get you killed.”

“Come on. I’m trying to do something selfless here!”

“The only thing you’re doing is self-harm,” I shot back, “I understand that you feel the need to become involved with this because of what happened with your uncle, but it’s best to take a step back and think very hard about what you’re willing to do to make that happen.”

“I already said that I didn’t care about that.”

Veronica had a look of realization.

“You’re Adrian Roderro? Didn’t Welt have your uncle killed?”

“Yeah. He did.”

Max jumped into the discussion, “Almost killed my brother in that same attack. He’s a bloody psychopath.”

“Why was your brother talking with him?”

Max shrugged, “He’d invested in his Church Walk project – but he decided to call off the entire thing suddenly. The other investors told him to go and confront him about it. Turns out the reason he backed out was that Welt was going over his head and killing the gang members that lived there.”

“A convenient way to kill two birds with one stone,” I concluded.

I didn’t know how much of that Veronica had already put together based on her own investigation. She was one of the agents responsible for looking into the demon-solider matter, even if she wasn’t aware of the full depth of the problem when she started investigating those murders.

If it continued as it was – then it was possible that Welt’s plans would escalate even further. He was intent on securing his position of power behind the throne of the King, he wanted statues and streets dedicated in his name, and a ‘quick and easy’ war with one of our long-time rivals would be the perfect capstone in his eyes. Whether he was cautious enough to see that dispatching troops would open a window of opportunity for violent civil unrest remained to be seen.

“We don’t have time to stand here and talk all day,” Frankfort said, “Every second counts – so let’s head over to the cliffs and get this over with.”

----------------------------------------

I agreed to let the rest of the gang come under the provision that they followed my orders and kept out of danger. We all piled into the carriage and took off, taking the main avenue out of the city and out towards the rocky cliffs to the north. They were beautiful and intimidating in equal measure.

The rest of the landscape alternated between rolling beaches with tall dunes, long grass on flat terrain, and sudden upticks in elevation that made travelling to and from this area a challenge on the roads. It was for that, and the consistent erosion that this area did not see the same amount of development as the city proper.

We pulled up on the side of the road and dismounted, almost losing our footing as a powerful gust of wind swept across the plains and pushed us around. I tightened the coat around my shoulders. It was summer – but there was no getting around the strong bite of that cold wind, which came from across the sea.

The Burnley Tower poked upwards from behind one of the hills. It was a decrepit and decaying structure that was taller than a lot of the buildings you could find in the urban core. The architecture was modern in nature, but the pastel paint had long been turned sour by the salty air and punishing weather.

In short, it looked like a complete wreck.

“Are you sure Welt was hiding out here?”

Veronica shook her head and spoke up over the deafening wind, “It was not my first choice! It’s close to the capital – but the lack of easy access and the deteriorating facilities made me seek out the others on my list first.”

There was a small amount of road traffic from fishing villages and agricultural settlements further inland, who used the road as the most direct route to the urban markets that they profited from. It was conceivable that they smuggled quantities of their product into the city from the tower. Veronica implied that Welt had a sophisticated network of premises, dummy businesses, and distribution and deployment centres from which he could unleash his force on the city. That all hinged on where they were keeping the biological material they stole from the demon we killed at the railyard.

I pulled out a pair of binoculars and carefully studied the outer edge of the property for any signs of guards on watch. There were a handful of men mulling around the exterior or sheltering from the blustery winds. They were trying to keep a low profile and stay out of sight, even now that Welt had played his hand and moved into the city.

It wasn’t going to be as simple as breaking in and sniffing around for evidence. Welt was still using the tower for some purpose. I carefully noted their positions, weapons and patrol patterns. After that, I returned to Veronica and Frankfort and explained the situation.

“I counted six men watching the perimeter, and they’re armed. This must be the right place.”

“No reason for armed guards at an abandoned building,” Veronica confirmed. She’d seen the deed being exchanged to a shell company connected to Welt during her investigation. It hurt her to recall that she no longer had the ability to boss the local government around and get what she wanted.

We were armed to the teeth and ready to go.

“I can’t keep up with you two. I’ll stay on the rear exit and ensure that they don’t have any smart ideas about running away once you break in,” Frankfort said.

We were going to clear the building to the best of our ability before allowing Samantha and the others to get anywhere near it. With all of the group aware of their respective jobs and our weapons brought to the fore – Veronica and I departed from the staging area and took the long way around to get the drop on our enemies. I crossed my fingers and hoped that none of his demonic soldiers were waiting in the wings for us...