Yvette prayed the girl would swallow her pride and heed Julie’s warning.
Dinner unfolded lavishly—carrot soup, lobster pies, veal roasted to perfection. When Julie departed (propriety demanded young ladies retire early), two classmates offered escort.
The real feast began post-meal. Gary arrived, clutching a swollen leather notebook—the serpent lore compendium Yvette had commissioned.
Its pages burst with scholarship. Citations bristled with footnotes; translated myths nested beside exotic scripts. Color-coded tabs partitioned regions: Norse \ Egyptian \ Indian.
"Exquisite work, Gary. Far beyond our agreement!" Yvette’s gratitude warmed the gaslit room.
"Just... thoroughness." He grinned, sunlight caught in his lashes.
Stars in his eyes. Literally.
Her carriage ride home prickled with anticipation. Eldritch rituals had once turned freshwater briny at her touch. Even "safe" texts now risked unraveling reality. She’d resisted scrutinizing Gary’s notes in public. But here, alone...
Snakes symbolized rebirth—skin-shedding metaphors. Familiar tales followed:
- J?rmungandr: earth-circling ouroboros destined to drown gods in venom.
- Ouroboros: Gnostic paradox, death birthing life.
Then—Ananta Shesha.
Colonial Sanskritists had decoded Hindu scrolls: this thousand-headed leviathan slept beneath creation. At each kalpa’s end—when rulers turned tyrants and wealth corrupted souls—the serpent would uncoil. Purification through fire. Then, renewal.
Yvette’s breath hitched. Thousands of eyes in the void…
India’s fractured past intrigued her. Split between Mughals and Maratha warlords, its mystics seemingly impotent against Albion’s cannons. Ulysses’ warning echoed: "Occult kingdoms always fall." Pharaohs marrying sisters to keep power divine? Their inbred lines crumbled. Tutankhamun’s shriveled heirs exhibited in horror shows proved it.
Albion’s shadow governance—wizards whispering to MPs, not seizing thrones—had birthed railroads and factories. Progress, yes. But at what cost?
She reread the Purana prophecy:
False prophets. Virtue measured in coin. Lifespans halved.
Manchester mill girls rarely saw twenty. Industrial barons sucking port in mansions skewed the "average." The apocalypse wasn’t coming—it festered in Albion’s soot-choked heart.
The notes suddenly reeked of ash.
In the coal-choked heart of 19th-century Birmingham, where smog clung like a shroud and steam-powered leviathans growled through the night, danger prowled unseen.
Workers stumbled through their shifts, deafened by machinery, blind to the shadows. One such shadow stalked a drunken woman now—her lantern swaying, her laughter slurred. She never heard Death’s breath behind her.
A blade flashed. Fog swallowed her screams.
……
“Meet the White Rabbit,” declared the wiry man in stained linen, his eyes gleaming behind smudged spectacles. “A memory sculptor. Feed it curiosities”—he tossed a flawed coin into the doll’s maw—“and it rewrites minds. Elegant, no?”
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Yvette frowned at the abomination: leather stitched like corpse flesh, guts squirming within.
“Instructions are simple,” the Artist crooned, producing a rusty scalpel. The Rabbit gulped it, its watch ticking. “Rarity fuels time. A royal’s secret? Worth hours. Common trash?” He smirked at the ignored gold coin. “Worthless.”
Her nose wrinkled. “And the cost?”
“Cost?” He chuckled. “Genius defies cost! Now, let’s discuss customization…”
“To Mr. White Rabbit, human notions of value are... irrelevant. King Arthur’s fabled sword? Merely a weapon steeped in blood. A common executioner’s blade from London’s past might earn you more time than such a relic.” The Aberrant known as the “Artist” spread his hands in a theatrical shrug.
Mortals cling to history and wealth, but such things hold no meaning for the Kin. To the rabbit, a holy sword and a butcher’s tool are one and the same—utilitarian curiosities.
Think of it like gaming achievements. The gear used matters less than the act itself.
“He can only consume items equal to his own size each day. Notice the dial on his watch? The hand shows how much memory-altering time he’s accrued. Use it, and the dial ticks down. Unlike ordinary timepieces, his resets every twelve hours. No hoarding—long-term memory edits are impossible.”
“Only twelve hours? Even if I tweak five minutes of someone’s breakfast memory, reality would betray the lie. Say I make them recall a sandwich instead of macaroni. The sauce-stained plate in the kitchen would contradict it, wouldn’t it?”
“The alteration nudges their logic. They’d invent excuses—Maybe the chef ruined the macaroni, so I tossed it and grabbed a sandwich. But contradictions pile up. If others insist they saw macaroni, cognitive dissonance kicks in. They’ll trust whichever narrative aligns with their biases... or question everyone’s sanity.”
Like fans rationalizing their idol’s scandals until the evidence overflows, Yvette mused. Some loyalists break; others delude themselves to the end.
“You comprehend his mechanics admirably. This prototype’s potential fascinates me. As his first user, your feedback would be invaluable. My workshop in Birmingham is always open.” He offered a card: William Bogard. 23 St. Philip’s Church Street.
The Artist’s true name laid bare. They’d met in a rural chapel’s confessional—codename-only protocol discarded for Bogard’s zeal. Normally, intermediaries would handle such exchanges to protect identities. Yet here he was, risking exposure for Yvette’s insights.
She reciprocated with her card. “Should Mr. White Rabbit reveal new quirks, I’ll be in touch.”
…
Rattling home in the carriage, Yvette studied her new acquisition. The rabbit-shaped artifact squished like a gore-stuffed beanbag, its button eyes absurd yet unsettling.
Aberrants like the Suicide Club’s “Angel” or the Star Apostle became such artifacts upon death—objects thrumming with false life.
But this “life” was mere reflex, she knew. Like a decapitated snake’s twitching. The Kin themselves existed beyond morality. The Star Apostle, a spore from the Old One Star Daughter, hungered mindlessly. To it, cruelty had no meaning—only instinct. Such innate, oblivious malice made coexistence impossible.
Hybrids born of Kin and mortals, however, inherited emotions. Vampires straddled this line. Closer to Kin than humans, they spiraled into madness with age. Marquis Montagu once remarked, “Only when a vampire ends their curse may the clan embrace anew.” Yvette had asked Randall how vampires die. Not by blade or poison—when eternity’s weight crushes them, they greet the sun and burn.
Seeing Aurora’s sewer massacre, Randall had muttered that the Marquis himself grew weary of immortality. Hence his grooming of successors.
In her past life, Yvette witnessed depression’s toll—saved suicides hollow-eyed as abused circus beasts.
Did the Star Apostle ever contemplate its purpose? Could such beings fathom death?
Yvette shook off the thought, exiting the carriage early.
London’s geography conspired to shield the elite. The wealthy northwest’s villas connected to downtown shops via broad avenues lined with middling storefronts—a buffer masking the industrial squalor beyond. One street over, alleys twisted into workers’ slums.
Yvette navigated these cramped lanes until reaching a tenement. A gaunt man loitered outside, coughing into his palm, clutching a battered suitcase.
“Trouble, sir?” She played the part of a benevolent bourgeois youth.
“Evicted... nowhere...” His words dissolved into phlegmy coughs.
A window slammed open above. “Scram, lung-rot! Scaring off tenants earns you a thrashing!”
The man scuttled into the alley, scanning peeling walls for workhouse ads. He startled when Yvette followed.
“Dire straits indeed.”
Her gaze dissected him.
“Dye-stained sleeves—you used to pay laundresses. Penniless now, you botch the washing. Leeches left scars, but funds ran dry. Turned to crude bloodletting. Futile.”
“Mockery?!” He sputtered, face mottled with rage and shame.
Albionians wore poverty like sin. The recently destitute clinked pockets full of copper farthings to feign wealth, shivering sans coat while praising “bracing” cold. This man’s threadbare pride wouldn’t outlast his consumptive cough.
Yvette sighed, swinging Mr. White Rabbit’s watch.
Mid-rant, the man’s fury dissolved.
“...A loan?”
She’d overwritten seconds: her cruel analysis became charitable aid.
“An investment in brighter days.” Twenty pounds changed hands—no name, no contract.
The dial shed eight seconds. The man forgot her condescension, his own outrage. Reality bent, then stitched itself anew.