Villainess 7: Janet’s Night Training
Red Pill 34: Incognitos, Allies
Thirty minutes before Janet’s first entrance into the fray of tonight’s auction, Countess Patricia O’Neill was thinking of her son for the umpteenth time. To keep her mind from dwelling over him if he was somewhere on the premises of her destination, the Countess asked Miss Maya in whispers what to expect. In turn, Miss Maya related her experience as a slave sold along with her sister Miss Naomi at a masquerade auction like this one. When the facade of Waterloo Mansion came into view, the Countess said, “Is this the place?”
“Yes,” Miss Maya said. “Naomi and I were held here for a week, till we were sold.”
“I see,” the Countess said.
“We’ll find your son,” Miss Maya said.
“If he turns up at the auction tonight,” she said, “I’ll make sure to bid for him.”
“If he’s here, I’ll find him,” Miss Maya said.
Then her coach stopped and her coachman opened the passenger door and said, “Time to go, my Lady.”
(At the same time, Miss Maya said in her mind, “I’ve already marked your shadow in advance, my Lady Countess, so while I’m looking for Lord O’Neill underground, I’ll come back right away if anything happens to you.”)
So Countess O’Neill exited the coach and said, “Thank you,” to her coachman (and to Miss Maya).
Then the Countess followed an incognito valet wearing a hooded cloak and a half-mask of his own into a Gothic archway through a series of dark passages in silence, then paused her steps when the incognito paused before a lighted seal on a dead-end wall and said, “Do you promise to keep this secret?”
“Yes, I promise,” she said.
“Then enter at your will,” the incognito said, “and a doorman will conduct you to the auction room. Have a nice evening, my Lady,” and he stepped aside for her.
Gulping yet again, Countess O’Neill stepped foot into the glowing seal and disappeared from the room.
Around the same time, a messenger bird fluttered through the ceiling of Marquess Fleming’s office at his marquessate, making the man look up at the shimmering talisman given animate form. He had been writing a letter of introduction for Lady Fleming in order to set up a meeting between his daughter and Duke Justin Woodberry’s son, Lord Ridley Woodberry, when a messenger bird landed on his desk and twittered.
Then the bird transformed into Duke Astor Bartleby’s letter, so the Marquess took it up and read through its contents and leaned back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling in thought for some time. He leaned over and reread through the letter, wondering what his young protégé was thinking to propose the involvement of his only daughter in Countess O’Neill’s problem, and thought about it some more.
In the end, Arnold looked over at the bird-shaped seal on the letterhead and pressed his finger over it and got an extra bit of intel in the form of Duke Bartleby’s intentions fluttering through his head: “My Lord Marquess,” (the seal said,) “there’s one more thing I must mention without putting it into writing. If there really is a hidden cabal within the Church of the Holy Light, if the Church of the Divine Dragon has infiltrated its ranks, as I suspect, then I’m afraid their main target is her Majesty the Queen, and they’ll use Lady Fleming as a scapegoat. If anything happens at this Friday’s title confirmation, you’ll protect Lady Fleming, and I’ll protect the Queen.”
When the seal’s magic faded, leaving him silent and brooding over the sheer extent of their enemy’s plans, he got up from his desk and went over to the salon sofa and the coffee table in the center of his office. A decanter of grenache and an empty glass sat on the table, so he sat and poured himself a drink and said, “Here’s to the Queen.”
He drank it empty and poured himself another glass, holding the stem of the glass as he gave his next toast some thought, and decided to be truthful for once.
“Here’s to having you, kid,” he added. “No matter what this world may say about you, you’ll always have a place with us in this life. Always,” and he drank it empty again. Now he paused and thought for a moment, letting the buzz of the alcohol drown out his racing thoughts over his daughter, and regained a sort of sluggish clarity, then chanced upon an idea.
He got up again and went over to his desk, where he discarded the letter of introduction to Duke Justin Woodberry in a drawer, and wrote another letter of introduction for Lady Fleming, this time to set up a private audience between the Queen and Lady Fleming as the Black Saintess. He wrote in a plain manner, almost to the point of rudeness, which said,
‘Dear Your Majesty the Queen,
‘I am writing to inform you that Lady Fleming can help you counter the machinations within the Church of the Holy Light that seeks to harm your Majesty. I suspect the Church of the Divine Dragon plans to scapegoat Lady Fleming with whatever might happen to you between now and this Friday’s title confirmation. To that end, I have received intel from Duke Bartleby and Lady Fleming that the Guardian of the Darkness has chosen her as the Black Saintess.
‘During the title confirmation, beware of what his Highness the Prince might do during this time, for I suspect that he will accuse Lady Fleming or otherwise denounce her. In the worst case scenario, you might be attacked the moment Janet approaches you to receive her blessing, framing her as the assassin and giving his Highness all the more reason to have her done away with in whatever manner he chooses.
‘No matter how our enemies do it, Duke Bartleby and I will be in attendance at St. Calliope’s Abbey to oversee everything: I will protect Lady Fleming, and Duke Bartleby will protect your Majesty, but you must also do your part. Before Lady Fleming goes up to the altar to receive her blessing, announce to the whole congregation that the Black Saintess has appeared in this kingdom without revealing her identity. To this end, give Lady Fleming a divine title other than the one I mentioned, for she has two affinities: the darkness and the aether.
‘I have said all I can for now, and we will see you then and there. I am sincerely yours,
‘(signed) Marquess Arnold Fleming’
The Marquess reread his letter to check for spelling errors and, finding none, pressed his finger over the bird-shaped seal on the letterhead and poured his intentions into it for about a minute. When he lifted his finger from the seal, the letter glowed and transformed into another messenger bird on his desk, a talisman given animate form.
“Go on,” he said, so the bird flapped its wings with glowing particles fluttering about it, then flew off through the walls of the Fleming marquessate and out into the night like another shooting star. After that, he went back to the coffee table and sat at the salon sofa and was about to pour himself another glass from the decanter.
Then two knocks came at the double doors, and a gray-haired man opened up.
“Who is it, Stuart?” he said.
“It’s Miss Night Flower, my Lord,” the butler said. “She wants your input before she makes a decision on something related to Lady Fleming.”
Night Flower was an alias that belonged to Viscountess Durham, the undercover sentinel of the Blaise Royal family charged with watching over things at the Academy. If it had anything to do with his daughter, he knew it also had something to do with the Prince and his new fiancée.
“Send her in,” the Marquess said, pouring himself a glass and taking it up and swirling the contents as Miss Night Flower came in and sat on the opposite salon sofa from his. When Stuart the butler closed the double doors, the Marquess took a sip from his glass and said, “Out with it, Night Flower.”
The Night Flower breathed in and out as if preparing herself, then said, “My Lord Marquess, I know this is sudden, but will you allow Lady Fleming to have a private audience with her Majesty the Queen—”
The Marquess was about to answer.
“—as the Black Saintess?” the Night Flower added.
And now the Marquess was left gaping for a moment, as if the double agent had just told him that his daughter had suffered yet another indignity from the Prince. When he regained himself, Arnold said, “Besides me and Duke Bartleby and Janet’s friends and her club advisor and you, are their Majesties also privy to that information?”
“Yes, they are,” she said.
“You know the consequences for revealing that information to anyone else besides the ones I mentioned, right?”
“I do,” the Night Flower said.
A long silence lingered between them as the Marquess weighed the pros and cons of deciding something else without the knowledge or consent of his only daughter, but when the man saw no other way around it, he said, “All right, Lady Fleming will meet up with the Queen at Lady Fleming’s convenience. That means after school hours tomorrow afternoon or early evening, whenever her schedule permits.”
His visitor let out a long sigh, then stood up from the sofa and bowed, saying, “Thank you, my Lord.”
“You’ve made me curious, Miss Night Flower,” Arnold said, “so please answer me before you go.”
“What is it, my Lord?” the Night Flower said.
“You could’ve sent a letter via messenger bird to Lady Fleming without consulting me,” he said. “Why go through the trouble of letting me know beforehand?”
“Considering everything that’s happened to Lady Fleming at school,” the Night Flower said, “I find it only right to give you due deference—”
“Don’t give me that poppycock,” he said. “Tell me the truth: Did you come here to consult me about something else besides my permission to allow my daughter to have an audience with the Queen?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Then sit back down,” Arnold said.
The incognita sat back down and said, “I’m wondering whether I should let anyone else know about this or not.”
“Then let me guess,” he said, thinking back to the extra bit of intel from Duke Bartleby’s letter. “Does it have anything to do with the Church of the Divine Dragon?” And when there came a sharp intake of breath behind the Night Flower’s mask, he smiled and added, “I hit the mark, didn’t I?”
“How did you get that intel?” the Night Flower said.
“I have my ways of finding out things just as you have yours,” the Marquess said, getting back to business again. “Just tell me what you know, and I’ll tell you what I know in return. Do we have a deal?”
“All right,” she said.
Countess O’Neill appeared over a walkway before a bandstand in an open field, and in front of her was another incognito valet in a hooded domino cloak and half-mask holding out a vase-like lamp toward her. The bandstand was on an elevated platform with posts supporting a conical roof over it, yet before she could memorize it, the valet with the vase-like lamp said, “Take this lamp with you and follow the corridors ahead of you to the end. When you meet a doorman in front of a pair of double doors, show him the invitation and place this lamp on an empty table, where you may sit and wait for the auction to begin.”
So she took the stranger’s lamp in her hands and ascended the steps onto the platform, where another glowing seal appeared at her feet. When she step foot over it, she disappeared from the platform—
And reappeared at one end of a corridor, sunken into the stark chiaroscuro surroundings of a pair of wall sconces on either side of her. Countess O’Neill gulped down her qualms and followed the valet’s directions, letting the light of her lamp guide her steps forward from one corridor to another and then to another and then another after that.
During this lonely walk, she whispered, “Say, who are these people? Are they part of a cult or something?”
“Of a sort, yes,” Miss Maya said from the countess’s shadow. “They resemble the Black Guard in this kingdom in that they form the black ops knight order of a secret organization, but that’s where the similarities end. These guys are ruthless, so keep to yourself while you’re there.”
“Do you know who they are?” the countess said.
Miss Maya paused for a bit, then said, “I do, but are you sure you want to know this?”
“If knowing this much will lead me to my son,” the countess said, “then I’ll risk it, whatever the cost.”
Again Miss Maya paused, then said, “They’re from the Church of the Divine Dragon, a perversion of the church I’m a part of, the Church of the Divine Shadow. That’s as much as I’m going to say about that,” and she appeared behind the countess walking step for step with the countess.
The countess stopped and turned around and said, “Where are you going?”
“There’s a magic barrier close by, where the auction room is,” Miss Maya said, “but I can’t cross it with you. Otherwise, we’d blow your cover. I’ll do what I can from here, so go on inside,” and she put a finger to the countess’s lips before she said anything else. “Hold still.”
“What are you doing?” she said, blushing.
“Shhhh,” Miss Maya said and whispered an incantation, and a spell flashed over the Countess’s lips like a kiss in the dark. “If anything strange happens there, or if you’re in danger, call me by my call sign, ‘Pink Panther,’ and I’ll be there to help however I can, got it?”
The Countess nodded her head.
“Oh, and one more thing before I go,” Miss Maya added, then in the Countess’s mind: “When you call on me, do it in your mind like I’m doing now. This way, you won’t get questioned when we’re communicating.”
“Got it,” the Countess said.
“Good. Go now,” Miss Maya said before merging into the shadows underneath a wall sconce.
And so, the Countess continued down the path, met up with the masked doorman, showed him her invitation, and entered the room. While there, she pretended to mingle with the others already seated at her assigned table, all the while eyeing the stage for what she hoped was her son’s appearance.
Yet that was forty minutes ago, and her initial disappointment at not seeing Lord O’Neill amongst the kids on stage had since been thrilled at the appearance of the Black Saintess several moments later and her disappearance when her attackers appeared. (In fact, Countess O’Neill had called the Pink Panther and told her about the Black Saintess’s sudden entrance and exit. Miss Maya, for her part, had said she hadn’t yet found any sign of Lord O’Neill in the sprawling underground complex of this place but would keep looking.)
With that, Countess O’Neill waited for Janet’s reappearance in this room amongst the collective hubbub of the incognito and incognita nobles clustered around a table close to the stage, praying for the safety of Lord O’Neill and Lady Fleming and those kids on stage, praying for a miracle. Yet even if such wasn’t forthcoming tonight, the longest night of her life, she still had Miss Maya as a backup.
Janet’s sudden bolt from the corner of the room turned heads her way, silencing everyone, and in three strides towards the table and the lamp and Forty (and Janet’s ex-suicide clone), she leaped as if she was clearing a hurdle and disappeared from that part of the room—
And reappeared over the table (where her clone was standing), swiping the lamp before Forty or the Captain could react, then blinking out of sight just in time—
Just as a vicious arc flashed through the small of her back, making Janet wince and grimace at the premonition of it blooming there in razor-sharp flowers of phantom pain. Yet even as the tactile hallucination left her body, Janet sensed the momentum of her attacker changing direction, a well-trained body snapping the blade through her neck in an expert two-handed follow-up like that of a samurai.
With two slashes through her ghosted body in just a fraction of a second, Janet blinked out of sight—
And reappeared at a cluster of tables (beside another clone as the other clones scattered from the action), putting distance between herself and Nineteen. Then she raised her hand to her neck but felt no pain and breathed out a sigh, then realized her opponent was no longer in sight in the room—
(with one second over and done)
—and teleported to another clone, just avoiding another slash that split a table into halves, then teleported to yet another clone, just avoiding yet another table-splitting slash (as her clones kept swarming to other parts of the room). In this way through the onslaught—
(with two seconds over and done)
—Janet avoided Nineteen’s slashes, albeit by mere nanoseconds, waiting for RuRu to finish putting the two dozen talismans from Janet’s shadow storage onto two dozen kids on stage.
(With three seconds over and done, Janet said, “Any time now?”
“I’m going as fast as I can!” RuRu said, putting on talismans like a card dealer in a rush.
“Go faster!” Janet said) as she dodged yet another slash from another of Nineteen’s arcing follow-ups, teleporting to a clone in another part of the room closer to the stage. Now she felt a burning accumulation of muscle fatigue and of repeated tactile hallucinations over various parts of her body, the collective waves of pain grinding at her in a vicious cycle that made her grimace and groan through it all.
(With four seconds over and done, RuRu said, “Just bear with it! I’m almost done!”)
So Janet gritted her teeth as she kept teleporting to various spots in the room (from one clone to another with five seconds over and done) while avoiding Nineteen’s slashes over and over and over like a broken record (till RuRu finally said, “I’m done, Janet! Go on!”)
Now Janet reappeared (next to her ex-suicide clone) in front of the other shadowed back corner of the auction room with her own unlit lamp in her hand that matched the one she had stolen from the table. She then switched their lamp with hers and threw hers into the air, tumbling end over end, and held onto theirs, now gleaming with twenty-six silvery strands from the kids and her two attackers against a dark red glow and a bright green corona shimmering over it. With all eyes focused on her airborne decoy, Janet vanished from the corner—
And reappeared on stage with two dozen kids (and RuRu, saying in her mind, “Take them away, RuRu!”
So RuRu took the lamp and disappeared, taking all the kids to another location) and leaving Janet alone on stage to watch the resulting scene play out.
In that scene, while the decoy was still in the air, Nineteen sheathed her katana and bolted into a running leap, teleporting to the tumbling lamp and catching it in midair, where her feet touched the wall above everyone’s heads. Yet when she teleported back to the table with the black tablecloth over it and passed the unlit decoy over to Forty for safekeeping, Nineteen was now sweaty and winded, while the Captain just stood there before the double doors with a gaping mouth below his half-mask as if he was unable to speak.
Forty faced him and said, “What’s wrong?”
The Captain, as if struck dumb at Janet’s disappearing act, just pointed towards the empty stage on which Janet stood and said, “They’re gone!”
Forty and Nineteen turned to the stage.
The auctioneer named Count John Doe and the other nobles also turned to the stage, and a collective gasp escaped their mouths as if that moment was the apex of a magician’s disappearing act. At any other time or any other venue, Janet’s five-second game of tag with Nineteen and misdirection and disappearance of two dozen kids on stage might have received a standing ovation from these same spectators, but this moment was neither the time nor the venue.
When the Captain regained his composure, he put two fingers to his lips and whistled, and then the double doors flung open, and dozens of incognitos and incognitas flooded into the auction room and fanned out from the double doors opposite the stage, covering all escape routes. Like the Captain and Forty and Nineteen, they wore hooded domino cloaks over their heads and bodies and half-masks over their eyes, all of them now drawing swords out of their scabbards in a collective series of metallic shings, and Janet knew things were about to get serious in the next few minutes.
(Yet unbeknownst to Janet on stage and her four clones on the floor space below her, a hidden ally named Miss Maya had also entered the room at the behest of Countess O’Neill amongst the gathering of incognito and incognita nobles nearby. After taking advantage of Janet’s misdirection, the pink-haired cat girl had infiltrated the room without alerting Nineteen during the influx of foot traffic past the double doors.
Now the stage was set, and the real battle was afoot, one that would live on the lips of every slave worker in the kingdom from tonight onwards.)
At the sight of so many armed ruffians, Countess O’Neill found herself hemmed in and jostled amongst her peers rushing to one side of the room between the gathering assailants and the stage, the nobles pressing up against each other to get a better look at the girl on stage despite Count John Doe’s efforts to calm them down. What had transpired had been more than just a game of tag, replete with teleporting bodies and flashing sword strikes here and there around the room, that resulted in two thirds of the floor space bestrewn with broken chairs and tabletops and shredded tablecloths. This crazy girl had declared war against the clandestine doings of an illegal establishment, and Countess O’Neill found herself marveling at the sheer pluck of this Black Saintess, this younger cousin of the young Duke Astor Bartleby, this rumored Lady Fleming that was the most reviled woman in Lassen Academy.
At first, Countess O’Neill thought this had all been spurred on with too much black tea at the Bartleby duchy and too much cabernet at the prospect of seeing Lord O’Neill on stage in this auction room. Yet try as she might to reason out the situation, her eyes hadn’t lied: there stood Janet on stage in that weird outfit glaring at the ruffians on the opposite side of the room (and here below the penumbra of a lighted wall sconce behind her was Miss Maya’s shadow lurking above everyone’s heads), and here also was Countess O’Neill herself standing amongst shady nobles of questionable morals, and they were all staring at what this girl had managed to do.
(“My Lady Countess, are you okay?” Miss Maya said in her mind, huffing and puffing. “I heard some noise earlier, so I doubled back to the double doors. What happened?”
“I’m okay, don’t worry,” the Countess said, “but I just saw a miracle. I’m at a loss for words to even describe how she did it, but the Black Saintess just rescued all the kids on stage and took them out of here.”
“No way!” she said. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“I’m serious,” the Countess went on, remembering the little snippets of conversation from the Captain earlier. “She was so fast I could barely see her movements, and that Nineteen woman couldn’t even touch her.”
Yet before Miss Maya could say anything to that) someone broke the stunned silence of the room.
“What are you waiting for, Captain?” It was Count John Doe, and he was pointing towards the stage at the source of all of tonight’s chaos, then yelling, “Don’t let her escape, or we’re finished, I tell you! Finished!”
So the Captain said, “Nineteen, Forty, you two stand back and guard the doors,” and as the two took up their positions before the only pair of double doors in the room, he drew out his own bastard sword and addressed the rest of his crew in the room, pointing towards the stage and saying, “The rest of you, take her out now!”
In that moment, just before the first dozen incognitos rushed in with swords gripped with murderous intentions, the Countess ordered Miss Maya (almost screaming in her mind, “Pink Panther, go help her!”)
At the same time, in the breathless seconds before everything went sideways, Janet was kicking herself for not leaving with RuRu and the kids a few moments ago. Now trying and failing to think of a backup plan, she knew she was somewhere underground, knew that two of her attackers were blocking off the only exit out of here, and knew that amongst the other ruffians was the Captain, so she drew her arming sword and took up her buckler. Notwithstanding the first dozen attackers charging across the floor space towards the stage and hollering at the top of their lungs, Janet was also kicking herself for failing to think of a backup plan in the first place with DeeDee and RuRu and her four clones before diving back into the fray.
Then, when the first dozen attackers vanished from the floor space and reappeared on stage, swinging their swords in vicious arcs right through her ghosted body—
Janet blinked out of sight, teleporting to one of her clones scattering their numbers around the floor. Yet as a dozen more attackers surged forward to engage her, blinking out of sight and reappearing with more slashes across her ghosted body, Janet kept teleporting to her running clones around the floor space as more assailants swarmed, teleporting in clusters with yet more slashes through her ghosting body. The one-on-one duel of tag between Janet and Nineteen had turned into mob football with swords, in which her attackers were a mob armed with swords and Janet was the football to be cut down over and over and over, draining the reserves on her aether affinity as the collective phantom pain of dozens of tactile hallucinations kept building up inside her body, threatening to become real enough to cripple her if she kept going like this.
Yet she kept teleporting over and over to (her four clones in) various parts of the room, gritting her teeth at the phantom pain edging her closer to injury as more slashes continued ghosting through her body—
(“Use the shadows!” someone said.)
—till the aether was depleted from her decoy lamp in Forty’s hands, and Janet winced and bit her tongue, tasting blood for the first time. With the tactile hallucinations lingering over her body, Janet slowed down and was forced to take a knee as the damage to her aura had opened up actual slashes underneath her outfit, showing crimson on the white band over her bangs, on the white cape over her shoulders, and on the white cuffs over her wrists, while dark stains appeared over the black fabric of the rest of her getup.
Yet in spite of the pain searing through her entire body, she was still able to blink out of sight, just able to dodge the slashes of her attackers converging on her position via her shadow-teleportation technique—
And appeared by a corner of the room close to the stage under the penumbra of another lighted wall sconce. Here she crouched to the floor in the shadow of the corner, still wincing as the pain only just started to subside, wondering whose voice that was. It wasn’t any of her clones (who all dashed towards Janet and asked if she was okay, and Janet told them she needed to take a breather for a bit), and RuRu and DeeDee haven’t said anything at all yet. Maybe they were taking care of the kids right now, she thought, so if it wasn’t her clones or the Guardians, then who was talking to her?
(“Where are you?” Janet said, looking around.)
Meanwhile, the Captain crouched and placed his palm flat on the floor again, and after his lips moved, another seal flashed from under his hand in glowing concentric circles, yet they passed by Janet’s hiding spot.
And like before, Count John Doe separated himself from the masked nobles gathered by the opposite wall, approaching the Captain and saying, “Any idea where she is?”
“No, Count,” the Captain said.
“Ugh, this is a nightmare!” Count John Doe said.
While the Captain and the auctioneer were talking it out (the mysterious girl said, “I’m above the heads of the nobles on the wall opposite yours.”
Janet looked but shook her head, saying, “I can’t see you that well from here.”
“I’ll go a bit higher then,” the voice said, and there in the light of the wall sconce above the heads of the nobles was the faint silhouette of a cat girl waving at her. “I’m waving at you: can you see me now?”
“Yeah, I can see you,” Janet said.
“Who are you talking to?” her ex-suicide clone said.
“I’m not sure,” Janet said, then to the mysterious cat girl: “Who are you? And why are you helping me?”
The shadow of the cat girl sunk below the light of the wall sconce on the opposite wall and said, “I’m Miss Maya from the Bartleby ducal house, also known as the Pink Panther, but you can call me Maya for short.”
“Wait, Bartleby?” Janet said. “Do you know my cousin, Duke Astor Bartleby?”
“Of course,” Miss Maya said, “and I already know who you are, Lady Fleming. Naomi and Sonja will be so jealous when they find out I’ve met you! I can’t believe I’m actually talking with the Black Saintess herself, and those are some sick-ass moves you’ve got, and that’s coming from a cat girl! Oh, and Countess O’Neill also told me about what you did earlier, too. Ugh, I wish I had been here to see it!”
Janet couldn’t keep up with this blabbermouth of a cat girl, so she said, “Um, Maya, do you know a way to get out of here? I’m kind of out of options.”
“I’m still figuring that out myself,” Miss Maya said. “Let’s brainstorm a plan: what do you say?”
“Sure,” Janet said.)
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