The wonders of the scheduled holiday.

For Walser, it was only a recent invention. Wrangled from the claws of needy industry and whip-cracking bosses, who insisted that non-stop work was the only way to maintain an appropriate level of productivity. Public opinion quickly shifted in favour of the unions once people got a taste of what free time could really be like.

Rising wages and the advent of modern machinery meant that the poorest no longer needed to work sixteen-hour shifts in workhouses and factories. They could return home and rest their bodies and minds, ready for the next. I did not envy them – yet the advancement of worker’s rights was something to celebrate for all of us.

They’d learn soon enough that a well-rested employee was a more efficient one. Still, the question remained firmly entrenched in the political sphere for the time being. Conservative parties in parliament detested the idea of the workers taking time off, leading to a spat between the national and local governments as they tried to pass bills outlawing the practice for local authorities.

A profound overreach that was part of the reason they received a summary pummelling in the last election. My Uncle’s party roared to a commanding victory with the largest vote share amongst all of the competition, which was then boosted even further by the baffling maths behind the first-past-the-post system Walser utilised.

Twenty-seven percent of the vote soon turned into thirty-five percent of the seats. They were the party to partner with, and the other democratic forces soon rallied behind them to form a new government. The nasty business involving the attempt on my Uncle’s life combined with the rumours surrounding Duchess Rentree’s untimely death only served to motivate voters even more.

But I returned to the manor for our first full holiday knowing that nothing was properly resolved. Felipe and Samantha continued to walk on eggshells around me, which was a marked difference from how they behaved just a few weeks before. The calculus between me and them was changing rapidly – but it felt as if it was out of my control.

I pondered this and other pertinent questions during the carriage ride back to the estate. The selections had been made, and our schedules would soon be changed to allow room for our elective subjects to be taught. It was odd that such a huge decision was made so early, but the Royal Academy was at the forefront of educational innovation. Kinks like this were to be expected.

The rocking of the carriage as we passed over the bumpy dirt roads begged me to close my eyes and drift off thinking about nothing in particular, and that sounded eminently appealing after a half-year of endless drama and stress. I should have known better.

“Lady Maria!”

My eyes snapped open. There was that looming sense of disquiet again. The rudimentary suspension that carried the carriage as we slowed to a stop. We were only a few metres away from the front gate. It was rare that the driver chose to speak with us, as most nobles considered it rude to do so.

“Yes? Is something wrong?” I inquired, raising my voice. When I received no answer, I moved to open the door and stepped out to see for myself. The driver was still sitting there – but now he was struggling to calm a pair of spooked horses.

“I’m sorry, Lady Maria. I’m... I’m not quite sure what to say.”

I turned my eyes towards those gates, only to discover that they’d been torn from their hinges by some unseen force. Those heavy, iron bars that once seemed to provide all the protection one needed, torn asunder and discarded like pieces of scrap metal. Beyond that, the gardens lay in a state of abject destruction. Furniture and smash pots littered the area, with several burnt trees and shrubs peppering the landscape.

My heart skipped a beat, “What in the Goddess’ name happened here?”

It wasn’t just the gardens. The house had borne the brunt of whatever malicious intent rolled through. Windows were smashed, doors were left hanging open, and red markings had been painted on every bare surface. A localised apocalypse had come to our home.

“Was it like this when you left?” I asked.

“No, not at all, my Lady.”

“Shit,” I hissed under my breath. I turned around and reached into the undercarriage, retrieving my trunk and smuggling the gun from inside into my coat. The driver was left at a total loss as to what to do. I had a bad feeling. Nothing good was going to come from this.

“Stay here,” I ordered.

“But Lady Maria – I can hardly allow you to...”

“Stay,” I repeated, “And be ready to leave.”

There was nothing he could do to stop me anyway. I kept my head on a swivel and entered the grounds, fully expecting the culprits to leap from their hiding places and attack me for trespassing. Each grisly detail only worsened my fears.

There was a dead body lingering at the edge of the pond.

The frilled dress of one of our maids was the first indicator that sent my heart racing. There was a wound on her back, either from a knife or a gunshot. They cut her down while she was trying to get away.

“Shit, shit, shit.”

I broke out into a run and ascended the front steps. Out of the driver’s eyesight, I drew my gun and peered around the open doors. The lobby was the worst affected area. A huge circular marking had been placed on the floor using what I hoped was red paint. The smell of fire and blood was strong, lingering in the air as a constant reminder that this was once one of the few places I considered safe enough to relax in.

Upon closer inspection, the circle was more intricate than I assumed. The outer ring was filled with different symbols and shapes, all sharp edges and intersecting lines. The centre was dominated by a large splatter which closely resembled the head of a stag, with two circular eyes and a pair of horns reaching up towards the top.

Scuncath.

I’d only performed cursory research into them after what happened with Thersyn, but this had their blood-stained fingers all over it. The iconography of the stag was a popular representation of their beliefs. If they were the ones who attacked our house, then there was little hope of finding living survivors. It was strange. They never committed crimes so brazenly, not like this. None of the case studies I found spoke of anything like it.

My ears perked up. There was a noise coming from the sitting room.

I kept my gun aloft and slowly made my way through the house. My chest clenched as I came across even more dead servants, people who’d worked faithfully and honestly to provide for their families, now left in a bloodied heap where they once stood. Some of the bodies were desecrated even further – missing ears and other extremities.

I could only think about how insane all of this was. They’d killed everyone.

One of the maids was pinned to the wall with a sword through her chest. This was a type of violent savagery that was beyond me. My mind could not reconcile the sights I was seeing with my prior impressions of the building. This was meant to be a safe bubble, I thought, but now it was left in ruins. Two years of peace and quiet were ruined in the time it took to drive from here to the academy.

“Franklin?” I hazarded, “Franklin? Is that you?”

I hadn’t seen him anywhere. The number of bodies just kept rising. They didn’t see it coming, and there was nothing they could do once the carnage started. I finally reached the sitting room from where the noise originated. The walls were stained with blood and even more runic circles.

There was a lonesome figure standing there in the study, her figure illuminated by the light coming from one of the smashed windows. She stood with a revolver in one hand and an open book in the other, like a statue – even though she could hear me calling out for Franklin and the others. A million questions bubbled to the surface of my mind.

They couldn’t be one of the invaders. They were already long gone before the police could arrive. Most importantly, how could they stand by and have such a calm reaction to scenes like these? She remained motionless even as my shoes caused one of the floorboards to creak.

I aimed at her.

“Who are you?”

If she was surprised by my arrival, she did not show it. She snapped the book shut and snuck it into her pocket. I was already closing in before she could flip her weapon on me and turn this into a standoff. Feeling the cold rim of my gun pressing against her head finally elicited some type of reaction.

“Oh my, is that the proper way to greet a visitor to this lovely house?”

“There is naught lovely about the state of the manor and you know why. I suggest you start talking before I lose my patience.”

“Is that an accusation of guilt? I must say – this aesthetic is not to my personal taste. I much prefer green, not red.”

She was being very casual given the circumstances. She was armed, not willing to answer direct questions under duress, and also willing to enter a building where a massacre just happened. There was nothing normal about it. The smell of doubt was almost as strong as the iron tinge of blood.

“What else am I supposed to think finding a stranger standing in the ruins of my house?”

The woman snickered with a high-pitched shrill, “A noble girl and a guard dog? How adorable!”

“Leave the gun and face me.”

To my surprise, she complied with the order. She rested her own firearm down on the table and slowly turned around with her hands in the air. As her features came into view, I realised that this was no stranger – at least not in the typical sense of the word.

That face and those red eyes that burned like fire, there was simply no mistaking it. She looked identical to me. This was the face that I would sport in thirty years’ time having endured the ravages of age and developed a sudden interest in strong, ruby lipstick. Crow’s feet clawed at the edges of her eyes. Her hair was cropped short, ending before it reached her shoulders.

Wasn't this an interesting development?

That answered my questions about where my Mother was supposed to be. There she was, appearing from the mist in a time of duress. I almost rolled my eyes at how typical that was for me at this point. She only appeared because it was appropriately dramatic. Durandia must have been laughing her ass off at me.

She smiled, “Uh-oh. Be careful with that, young lady.”

“Is this some kind of joke to you?” I asked pointedly. I wasn’t going to go easy on her because of our potential biological connections. She was suspect. Anyone would be, lounging around the house when it was in this horrid state. It didn't phase her one bit.

“I’m very familiar with Mister Death, young lady. He and I are old friends. This is a terrible sight to see - but your reaction is far more interesting than mine. What sort of teenager pulls a gun and heads long into the breach? No normal girl. Not a normal girl at all!”

Despite the glaringly obvious conclusion of her true identity, she did not openly acknowledge it. The standoff continued unabated. There was no sign of emotion in her cold features. Either she was damn good at concealing her feelings or there was something wrong in that head of hers.

“Do you mean to make me state the obvious?”

She clapped her hands together, “State what?”

I was getting frustrated, “The resemblance between us. Nothing to say, no comments?”

“To be truthful, I was of the mind that this reunion should never happen. Matters were easier and more palatable just the way they were before.”

A very polite way of describing oneself as an absentee parent.

“You admit to being my Mother then?”

“Hm. Am I?”

I grabbed the green sash that ran across her chest and tugged on it, “Stop with the games, or I’ll leave you dead in a pile with the rest of them.”

That. That was the statement that finally revealed some of her true intent. It was brief, so brief that anyone but me would have missed it entirely. That was a sense of disappointment. It came and went, and she powered on without expressing it using her words. To conceal it, she laughed, and laughed – and then laughed some more. It was a raspy kind of laugh that made her sound short of breath.

“Don’t I look the fool now! Ever so sorry dear. I’ll try to answer some of your questions. It’s the least I can do given the dire circumstances.”

“Stop screwing around and tell me what happened.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

She went cold again in an instant, snapping rapidly between emotions without taking a moment to rest. “It is exactly as it seems, I’m afraid. A roving band of murderous Scuncath have decided to visit your lovely home.”

“And why are you here?”

“This is my job,” she replied plainly, “Any more than that is superfluous.”

“Superfluous, or dangerous?”

“Both. I was keeping an eye on them, but they gave me the slip – and now we are left to reckon with the consequences. It is simply a coincidence that I find myself here.”

She was some variety of detective or spy then, a government agent. I released her clothes and stepped back. She reached back and slipped the revolver into her dress before I could confiscate it. She couldn’t draw that fast enough to kill me from there, so I let it go for the time being.

“Is this because of Thersyn Bradley’s arrest?”

She shrugged, “Who knows? They have been more... aggressive of late, though to blame one event for their change of tact would be short-sighted. They’ve long been known for their erratic behaviour.”

“And where is my Father?”

“You can relax for the time being, he’s alive.”

How did she know that?

“And Franklin?”

Her heavily plastered lips upturned into a small grin, “I don’t know a ‘Franklin,’ but the survivors are hiding in the cellar. You should go and reassure them that the attack is over. We can talk specifics once you’re done. I have no intention of leaving the scene before completing my investigation.”

“You honestly expect me to fall for that? There is nothing stopping you from turning tail and fleeing the moment I take my eyes off of you.”

“My, so untrusting! Isn’t it a daughter’s fantasy to be ordered around by their estranged Mother? All of your dreams are coming true as we speak. There’s so much for us to catch up on. I thought you’d be happy to make up for lost time.”

I sighed, “You’re no Mother of mine.”

Oddly – she did not seem upset by that statement. On the other hand, she was not here by choice, otherwise, she would have appeared at any point in the past thirteen years. There was a lot of inference to be made from her actions, but she was not as subtle as she liked to think.

She smiled, “Veronica.”

Not Gwyneth? That was curious.

“What?”

“If you wish to refer to me in non-familial terms, then Veronica will suffice.”

There was no way she was going to stay here while I poked around the basement. She didn’t want to be seen at all. My searching for survivors would provide her with the perfect opportunity to slip away and disappear again, along with any of the answers I was trying to squeeze out of her.

But the moment I moved to bring her along with me, her arm shot out and tried to wrench the pistol from my palms. I stepped back and kicked her away, where her lower spine hit the table. She ran at me again, successfully throwing me off-balance this time and wrapping her hand around the slide to keep it from firing.

I wasn’t going to let this woman show me up in a scuffle. I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her down with a hip toss. She tried to clench her shins around my neck while she was on her back, but I moved away and regained control with the gun pointed in her direction.

She found this hilarious. It was the funniest damn joke she’d ever heard. She wouldn’t stop laughing.

“Impressive! Really impressive! They don’t teach things like that at the Royal Academy, do they?”

“You’re testing my patience.”

She flipped her hair back out of her eyes, “Like Mother like Daughter, as they always say.”

“Most Mothers don’t try to do something so dangerous.”

“Well. I saw that look in your eyes and reasoned that you’d be fully capable of stopping me. Call it a stray curiosity. Who taught you to do that?”

It was my turn to laugh, “I did.”

She stood up and dusted off her dress, “I suppose I cannot expect an answer from you when I am also concealing so much.”

I really disliked this woman. She was a compilation of personalities that rubbed me the wrong way.

“Are you done with these childish games? I want to find them before they kill my Father too.”

“Damian is hardier than you think – Maria.”

He must be to handle a crazy woman like this. I lowered my gun to release some of the tension that was building between us. It was always a fine line to tread between winning them over and threatening them with harm. Enemies could be very good accomplices if you tricked them into believing it was their idea.

“Hardy enough to fight off an army of Scuncath?”

Her smile dropped, “No. Not really.”

It was difficult to wrap my head around this conversation. All of this had happened within a few minutes. The manor was in ruins, my Father was missing, the Scuncath were now rampaging in a manner unusual by their standards, and my estranged absentee Mother was now galivanting around the place and trying to frustrate me.

I would have thought that the Mother issue would be one that demanded an hour’s debate before she admitted to it – but maybe she saw that as a pointless endeavour given our similarities. She really did look the spitting image of me; aside from the fact that she was significantly taller than me. The genetic lottery was not kind on that front.

She followed me like a good girl until we reached the cellar entrance, which had been conspicuously barricaded from the inside.

“I don’t want to be seen by anybody else,” Veronica commented, “It will make matters more complicated than they need to be.”

I was not in the mood to argue with her about this. I peered through the keyhole and spotted the chair that was being used to hold it shut on the other side. A little focus and nihility magic solved that problem, shaving away one of the legs and causing it to fall down the stairs.

“How did you do that?” she asked.

“I’m allowed to have my secrets too, Veronica.”

I hurried down into the cellar and took a moment to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. If they were hiding down here, they’d even gone to the effort of killing the lights to stay concealed. There were a lot of empty casks and shelves down here. It was the first time I’d actually stepped inside.

“Franklin?”

I walked deeper and repeated his name until I finally got a response. His head appeared from behind one of the casks all of a sudden. If I were made from weaker stuff, I’d have jumped up into the rafters.

“Maria! What are you doing here? You need to go and hide!”

I held out my palms, “Take a breath, Franklin – the people who did this are gone.”

The sense of relief on his face was palpable. He turned back to an unseen group of servants and waved them over from their hiding place. A gaggle of maids and butlers soon emerged and started to mull around the cellar while Franklin conversed with me. It was a mournful reminder of how many of them were murdered and left to rot on the property as we spoke. Normally the full number would not be able to fit in this small room.

I pulled Franklin out of earshot, “What happened here?”

He swallowed, “Did you... see the bodies?”

“I did. I recognise some of the symbols they vandalised the place with. Scuncath.”

“Scuncath?” he echoed, “I had no idea, but now that you mention it – such abject cruelty is their speciality. Merely killing an innocent man or woman is not enough, they must do so in a manner most bloody.”

Franklin was understandably shaken up. He’d barely escaped a similar fate, but that also meant that people he knew, hired and worked with were now dead as a result. I’d give him the space he needed once he confirmed the story that the woman upstairs was offering me.

“Franklin. Take the rest of the staff away and contact the police.”

Franklin found my straight-laced instruction supportive in times of stress. He nodded and stood up at his full height once more, “Very well. What about you?”

I hushed my voice, “There is someone upstairs I need to speak with. Not one of the attackers, I think, but they know something about what happened. We can talk once you’re calm.”

Franklin frowned, “A passer-by? There must be a screw loose in their head if they considered walking into this mess voluntarily. I know you can handle yourself but...”

I was really curious. Did Franklin know the person claiming to be my Mother? He’d worked at our house since shortly before I was born, a claim that none of the other servants could boast on their resumes. Surely if she was pregnant with me, or rather the vessel that I would eventually inhabit, he would have seen her skulking around the estate at some point.

Durandia’s explanation as to how I became Maria led me to believe that I didn’t even have a Mother. It would have been easier to conjure me and my Father out of thin air than worry about filling in the fine details. Was it some variety of divine conception? I was starting to suspect that there was good reason to keep all of this information secret.

Thus, I decided to keep Franklin in the dark for the time being. He had bigger issues to worry about first.

“I spoke with her on the way down here and she pointed me in your direction. I don’t believe that she has ill intent, or that she was involved in the attack.”

Franklin nodded, “Very well. I trust your judgement. I’ll get the rest of the servants away from the building and walk to the police dispatch box.”

“There’s no need. The carriage is still outside.”

“Ah! That will make it easier.”

“What happened to my Father?” I asked.

He gritted his teeth, “I... they took him. Hauled him away like a prize deer. There was nothing we could do, but they did not kill him like the others. Hopefully, he’s still okay.”

“I see. Then we will have to endeavour to rescue him before the worst happens.”

Franklin rounded up the servants and escorted them up the stairs. There was no getting around the rank violence that occurred here. There was blood everywhere, and the bodies of their friends and co-workers would be impossible to ignore. It was almost enough to make me feel queasy - and I’d seen some horrible things during my years as a hired gun.

As for my Father, his survival was strange. Why would they break into the estate, slaughter everyone they could get their hands on, and then kidnap him? Were they going to try and extort our family for money in exchange for his release? That would suggest a level of top-down organisation entirely out of line with previous Scuncath attacks. The mayhem was the goal, not the means, and never attempted in large numbers.

When I returned to the corridor, Veronica had gone missing. I was just about to lose my cool as I felt that spike of frustration in my chest, but I found her quickly though. She was taking a closer look at the huge circle that was painted onto the tiled floor in the lobby.

“See? I told you I’d stay.”

It sounded as if she was trying to reassure me that we could be a happy family again, like a recently divorced parent.

“You’re going to have to do more than that to earn my trust.”

“You and I both know that earning your trust is impossible.”

“How so?”

“Because we are more alike than you choose to imagine. I understood what sort of person you were the moment you held me at gunpoint back there. You don’t trust people. Trust is for buffoons who believe in some kind of innate goodness when we live in a world dominated by material motivations.”

I crossed my arms, “For your part, you could have made yourself look less suspicious. I don’t go pointing firearms at just anyone.”

She clutched her hands to her heart and cooed, “I’m honoured to be among such illustrious company. It shows that you care.”

Her dry sarcasm was merciless. It was so dry that I almost mistook it for a serious statement.

“Are you going to tell me what you can about this mess now?”

She pocketed her notebook and smiled, “Ah. Naturally – there are many things I am not permitted to say, and for once I agree that those restrictions are for the best. Aside from the obvious, it appears that the Scuncath have started to put a new plan into motion. One which demands a level of organisation seldom seen from them.”

“Why did they kidnap my Father?”

“I’m not entirely sure. Information about their practices is... light, at best. If I were to make a guess, I’d say they want him for one of their ritual sacrifices. They believe that the nature of the person used has an impact on the creature that is summoned from beyond the veil. They call them Horrcath.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s old Walserian. The Scuncath name is composed of two parts. Scun, which means follower, and Cath – who is the patron saint they associate with. Horr means messenger, so the monsters they intend to summon are messengers of Cath.”

I shook my head, “I’ve never seen or heard of a Horrcath before.”

“They’re real – but most have the benefit of having never seen or encountered one. Horrcath are extremely difficult to summon. First-hand accounts of what they can do are few and far between. There hasn’t been a sighting in a hundred years. I don’t know each variety from experience, but luckily for us one of the foremost experts in the field is here on the Coast.”

She double-checked that she’d marked down everything accurately before turning and walking through the front door.

“Don’t sic the police on me when they show up,” she pleaded.

“I thought you were working for the government.”

“I am, but that doesn’t mean that all of the limbs know each other. The department I work for used to be even more secretive than that. Only the Royal Family and the highest-ranking civilian officials were even informed of our existence.”

“So it’s okay to tell me that, but not the name?”

“Funny how that works, isn’t it?”

Walser’s Internal Security Division was not an old institution by any standard. As part of the compromise process between parliament and the royal family – power over the military and intelligence service was handed over to elected officials. A series of reforms were badly needed to transform them from the royals’ secret police into something more useful.

There was only one intelligence force that existed in the country before that. The Sturmläufer, who were one-part real occurrence and three-parts conspiracy theory lunacy. That may not have been their real designation, but there were accounts of these people serving as guards and fixers for the royals over the decades preceding the revolution.

I was thirteen years old. Just old enough to be conceived after the reformation into the WISD. If Veronica was serving with them for long enough to appear in her early forties now, that meant she was working with them from a very, very young age. Those allegations of employing child soldiers as agents may have been close to the truth.

“You’re one of those ‘Sturmläufer’ that Claude won’t shut up about.”

She chuckled, “Sturmläufer – it makes me laugh every time I hear it. No such organisation existed before the compromise or after it. In fact, the name Sturmläufer was coined in a newspaper article penned by Frank Birkin in response to the attempted assassination of Princess Gloria.”

I sighed, “Aren’t you just a wellspring of interesting information.”

“I like to read,” she retorted simply, “And in this job, knowing everything is very helpful.”

I still had a lot of questions about this, and I was still on the fence as to whether to give her words any weight at all. This could all have been an elaborate scam to earn my trust and get away none the worse for wear. None of the other Scuncath stuck around to face the police though, and the resemblance was too uncanny to discard.

She curtsied, “But now is the time to take my leave. Lots of work to do. Busy, busy, busy!”

I stopped her before she could take off, “Hold on a second. What makes you think I’m going to stand here and do nothing? I’m going to find my Father and make them regret ever trifling with our good name.”

“I can’t bring you with me,” Veronica protested.

“That’s too bad. I’m not going to give up, with or without your help.”

“This is no business for a girl your age, Maria. Stay here and clean up the mess, go to school, do whatever it is that you do. Under no circumstance should you try to follow me. There are a lot of dangerous people involved in this who you’d do well to stay away from.”

“I can handle myself.”

“Could you face down a horde of enraged Scuncath and walk away in one piece?”

I decided to make my position known to her. There were simply two outcomes to my gambit. She would either believe me, or not – and both outcomes would not change my involvement in this. Veronica was fooling herself if she thought that I’d sit back like a good girl and wait for someone else to solve my problems. I did not want to end up buried under my Father’s work like Adrian did.

It was somewhat risky though. If she had the power of arrest, she may decide to haul me to the nearest station for an interview. Given that she was trying to avoid seeing the police though...

“The shooting at the Escobarus estate, did you ever figure out who was responsible for attacking the Tee’s Gang?”

Veronica’s eyes narrowed, “That wasn’t my assignment. But no. The only survivors blamed the shootings on a...”

There was the recognition I was looking for.

“They blamed it on a young girl who was attending the event as a guest? They told stories so absurd that the police didn’t entertain filing them in their reports, or presenting it as evidence during the trial?”

For the first time she was rattled; “You didn’t.”

I stepped closer, “Oh yes I did. These Scuncath, they’ll wish that they plead forgiveness from the Goddess when they had the chance when I get my hands on them. Demons are the last thing they’ll be worrying about when I find the hole they’re hiding in.”

Veronica could not enunciate an appropriate response to that claim. She stared a hole through me from above, somewhat undercutting my attempts to appear intimidating. I was not necessarily trying to intimidate her, rather, I was moving to make it clear that there was no prospect of avoiding my interference in her case. She could bring me along and have control over what I did, or let me loose and risk screwing up the whole deal for her.

She understood what I was doing, “You drive a hard bargain.”

She believed me. It must have been because of the brief fight we had earlier in the study. You could intuit a lot about someone’s capabilities from a short scuffle like that.

“Call it payback for not stepping in when you had the chance.”

Veronica frowned, “I’m only one woman, Maria. Leaping in and getting myself killed was not going to assist any of your deceased servants, nor would it protect any of the Scuncath’s future victims from similar crimes.”

“Then leave the heroics to me.”

“That would be most problematic,” she insisted.

“Well – I can be swayed away from taking impulsive actions if you offer me a piece of information about our ‘relationship’ in exchange.”

Veronica, unsurprisingly, did not bite on that offer.