To Live With Oneself

by ~Amberspike-Sama

The owner’s name was Mr. Bostwick, and he had terror not only in his eyes, but written in every line, every crease of his face. He absolutely trembled with it, his gloved hands shaking as he folded and unfolded them atop the oak desk, his gaze darting anxiously about the wide office.

“It—it knocked me right off my feet. It so much resembled a shadow, and yet it rammed me with such force that I, I fell over…it came up over me and I tried to stop it, b-but…”

He pulled off the gloves, and rolled up his sleeves, revealing wide red splotches, edged in blackish peels of skin.

Vivaine looked at the splotches, then back up at his pale visage. “Those are acid burns…you ought to see a doctor about them. Spectres secrete an acid solution to externally digest their prey—”

“Digest?” Mr. Bostwick echoed, his voice rising a few pitches.

“Well, yes.”

“It was trying to digest me? And my mechanics?”

“It is a carnivorous species. Like a…like a wolf, sir, only without teeth. It has to—”

“It was nothing like a wolf!” he exclaimed. “Wolves cannot fly, or float, or cover a man like a blanket! By God, it was a hellish creature, Miss Stratton, and I want it dead!”

“I assure you, it will be gone soon enough, once the exterminator arrives. Now, could you describe its appearance a bit more? Give me an impression of its size?”

Vivaine brushed back a wisp of her dirty blonde hair, and sat with her elbow resting on the desk and her fountain pen poised above a notebook. She gave what she hoped was a compassionate smile, while inwardly recoiling from Mr. Bostwick’s blatant fear. She doubted she had ever seen a man so upset…

“Its size? It was constantly rippling and shifting, I could not tell, really…it was able to extend itself to my height, when it tried to—to envelop me. The whole of it was dark, shadowy, but partially transparent, and the view through it was blurred, like the view through warped glass. It did not have a distinguishable head, but it did have two bright spots on its upper portion, reddish, like horrible eyes…”

“Were the eyespots its only apparent markings?”

“They were the only ones I saw.”

“And you said it moved as quickly as a bat?”

“Yes. It swooped down so quickly that I could not move out of the way, and—”

“But its speed was more like a bat’s than, say, a housefly’s?”

“Goodness.” He stared at her, agape. “They can be that fast?”

“Some reports have claimed they can.”

“If it had been any faster, I doubt…I would have made it. I wouldn’t have had t-time to struggle out, before…”

He covered his face with a seared hand, shivering violently.

“Sir,” Vivaine said, trying to retain his focus. “Sir, another question. I must know—did you experience any lightheadedness? Any head pain, while it was attacking you? Or, if I may, any loss of coordination, feeling, or—”

“Now now, Miss Stratton, no need to be tormenting the witness.”

Momentary surprise showed on Vivaine’s face at the sound of the man’s voice. Then, as she turned towards him, her gray-blue eyes darkened in annoyance.

“I was merely making inquiries for a report.”

The man, an auburn-haired, half-smiling fellow, strode over to Vivaine and bent close to her ear. “Your inquiries appear to be scaring him shitless.”

“He was scared shitless to begin with,” she hissed back. “I told you to give me ten minutes to speak with him alone.”

“I grew bored after five. Besides, I was hardly comfortable with leaving a lady like yourself alone with a monster about.”

“That is no way to speak of Mr. Bostwick,” Vivaine replied sarcastically. “Now, give me the rest of my ten minutes, Mr. Cillian.”

He ignored her, instead stepping up to the owner and extending a hand.

“Mr. Bostwick. Quinton Cillian, the exterminator you called for. I apologize for taking so long; traffic was awful on Hansworth road.”

“Was it?” asked Mr. Bostwick. “Normally Hansworth is…is rather unfrequented.”

“Well, a cart overturned. A cart carrying wine barrels—the driver was having out his frustrations on the pretty young woman who had run into him until I intervened. We had a nice talk, I offered to pay for some of the damages, helped clean up the road, shared a drink…I am just too generous, sometimes.”

Vivaine snorted.

“You probably are well tired of questions at this point, as I know my assistant can be a bit overzealous—”

“Assistant? You mean, ‘independent researcher who happens to be accompanying you’—”

“—but I have two to ask of my own. Only two, I assure you. One: how many spectres are present in this building? And two: where might we find them?”

“Only one,” Mr. Bostwick said immediately. “I met it on the ground floor, but some of my men have seen it pass through the maintenance tunnels below.”

“Thank you very much.” Quinton strode to the door, gesturing for Vivaine to follow. “Come, Miss Stratton. Enough with the interrogation.”

Vivaine’s eyes flashed. “Who are you to—”

“Enough.” He cast a friendly smirk back at her, beckoning with one finger. “Give him his peace.”

Vivaine looked at him, then at Mr. Bostwick, then, heaving a sigh, she slammed her notebook shut and got primly to her feet, stalking out ahead of Quinton.

“I was hoping we would get along, Mr. Cillian,” she snapped. “I cannot believe you’re incapable of sitting still for ten minutes.”

“I don’t like sitting around when I have a job to do.” He reached into a pocket of his tan jacket, feeling for something.

“Well, I don’t like being prevented from doing my job.”

“You probably would have gotten clearer answers out of him if you had tried asking after we captured the thing.”

“I have tried that. No one is willing to discuss the spectre after it is gone. They shoo me off every time.”

Quinton pulled out a glass flask and blew into it to get the dust out. “You could try letting me ask the questions.”

“I wouldn’t trust you with them. Honestly, I wouldn’t trust you with much of anything.”

“That’s a little hurtful.” Retrieving a tin from another pocket, he took out a piece of meat and pushed it down the thin neck of the flask.

Vivaine stared at it. “Venison?”

“No, rabbit.” He smiled at her perplexed expression. “I’ve used a couple of different types over the years, and my experiments show that spectres to the north prefer rabbit. Down south, they tend to have a taste for chicken.”

Vivaine opened her notebook, scribbled something about ‘regional differences’ in it, then stowed it away in a messenger bag at her hip.

Quinton put a cork in the flask, and held it out to her. “Hold this, please.”

She took it, and watched as he withdrew another flask, jammed a piece of rabbit into it, and corked it shut.

“There. You can find a place to set that one, and I will handle this one. It is always good to have more than one—in case the first one ends up shattering, or to have one near the other side of a room, in case the spectre shows up there. These creatures can be tricky bastards sometimes.”

He lifted a wooden box, about the length of a magazine cover and as deep as a kitchen drawer, that hung across his shoulders by a leather strap. Opening its brass latch, he flipped a small switch inside, spun a few dials, and watched the elegant needle swing across the face of the wide gauge, before settling a bit above the zero reading.

“I won this in a game of poker three years ago at the Ramsden bar,” he remarked. “This meter is close to ten years old, but still works like a charm. Best prize I ever got.”

“Really.”

He shut the box, reached for twin holsters that were partially concealed by his jacket, and grabbed two revolvers, extending one to Vivaine.

Her brow furrowed. “Is that really necessary?”

“We are going up against something that can start burning you alive before you can say ‘help.’ You are not coming with me unless you can protect yourself.”

“But if we are only capturing it—”

Quinton rolled up one of his sleeves, showing off a wide, pink, splotchy scar.

“That doesn’t mean disasters cannot happen. I could never forgive myself if you ended up with one of these on your lovely skin.”

“Very well,” sniffed Vivaine.

“Do not be afraid to use that. Unless you happen to hit the spectre by the eyespots, chances are it will not be mortally wounded. There are six shots in there—to fire you have to push that little hammer down, then pull the trigger.”

“I doubt I will be needing it, but thanks.”

Quinton gazed at her, absently fingering a tarnished locket around his neck. “You should probably try to stay behind me, too, while we’re walking around.”

“Are you afraid that I might do something foolish?”

“Well, I did plenty of foolish things myself, my first year at this.”

Vivaine tilted her chin up, looking him the eye. “Keep in mind that I know far more about spectres than you.”

“Yes, but half of that knowledge would not do you any good as an exterminator.”

She strode in front of him, flask in one hand and revolver in the other, and cast him an unimpressed glance. “We will see about that, Mr. Cillian.”


*


The ground floor was a wide place, filled with steam-driven generators that stretched from wall to wall. Their steel flywheels towered at four times Quinton’s height, and their thick pistons were suspended above the ground by pillars, which were surrounded by snaking pipes, cables and a multitude of belts and shafts. The machinery glimmered dully in the light of a few bare bulbs, hanging by thin wires from the distant rafters.

“Impressive,” said Vivaine, surveying the area. “The spectre certainly has plenty of places to hide.”

Quinton looked up at the lights, cracked his neck, and muttered something under his breath.

“What did you say?”

“…Just a moment, Miss Stratton.” He turned from her and walked away, scanning the wall for something. “What an inconvenience…”

She arched an eyebrow as he disappeared around a corner. A minute later, there was an audible snap, and the lights shut off.

Her heartbeat quickened.

“Mr. Cillian?” She squinted, trying to see by the haze of moonlight passing through the row of windows near the ceiling. “Mr. Cillian, was that—”

Something touched her forearm, and in her fright she nearly dropped the flask. A yellowish light clicked on, and Quinton’s smirking face came into view, illuminated from below.

“I did not think you were the sort of person to be afraid of the dark, Miss Stratton.”

“Do you always hunt in the dark?” she hissed.

“Always. Spectres are far more inclined to roam about in darkness than in light.” He frowned. “If it bothers you, you can stay behind. I will take care of—”

“I am not staying behind,” she insisted. “Start walking, Mr. Cillian.”

He moved at a slow pace across the floor, holding up the meter, which provided the dim yellow light via a small bulb. He kept an eye on the gauge, and she watched it too, as the needle jumped and swung in response to invisible pressures.

After he’d walked a straight line down the length of the floor, scoping out what an average reading was like, Vivaine thought to comment.

“Do you even know why that thing works?”

“I know spectres give off some sort of electric field,” he said quietly, “that gets stronger as you approach them.”

“It has to do with the properties of the acid they use for digestion. Within the body of the spectre, the acid conducts a small amount of electricity, that gives off a magnetic field. We are still researching it, but…we think it may be enough electricity to stun or paralyze small prey.”

“I am glad not to be small prey, then.” Quinton turned left, following a particularly wide arc of the needle.

He and Vivaine passed beneath one of the walkways by the monolithic pistons. Moonlight seeped through the cracks, casting unearthly shadows around pipes and bevel gears.

“So, what inspired you to become an exterminator?” she asked, trying to ignore the prickle of unease creeping up her spine.

“Have you asked other exterminators that question?”

“Yes. Most of them claim they are in the profession for the money, or the sense of adventure. One readily admitted he was a reformed criminal.”

“I do it for the adventure,” he replied, skirting around a pillar, “and fall within the lattermost category. I used to be a mercenary until the police became a bit too nosy for my tastes.”

“You must be kidding.”

“I am not. I was good at it, too. I once shot down a thief while on a train ride to Stapleton, stowed the gun in the luggage of a snobby old man that I had seen bothering some young ladies, and sat sipping brandy as officers dragged him out.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Another time, I knifed an embezzler as he stepped into an alleyway with his lover, who turned out to be as greedy as he was. She was perfectly fine after I let her keep his wallet, and took her out to dinner to apologize for making a frightful scene.”

“Certainly there is not a person on earth like that.”

“There are plenty of people like that. You need only visit any bar or brothel in town to find them.”

“If that is where you find them, then I shall never chance to meet them.” Vivaine ducked to avoid a low-hanging cable. “And, pray tell, why is it that every one of your fabricated stories involves you assisting women? Are you attempting to impress me?”

“I simply love the company of women,” he stated, casting her a kindly glance. “And am always willing to assist them. Though it seems that you, Miss, are not too keen on men.”

“Because I have found that most men are conventional, self-important bastards. I cannot count how many times, upon telling a man what I do for a living, I have been asked whether it involves collecting butterflies or something of that nature.”

“Well, to their credit, most women decide not to study very dangerous creatures. Or wander around with men, attempting to capture them.”

“Wander?” She shot him a glare. “That sounds indecent.”

“I did not mean to offend you, Miss—hm, could I please just address you as Vivaine? You may call me Quinton, if you’d like. The whole ‘Miss’ and ‘Mr.’ thing gets tiring after a while.”

“It is ‘Miss Stratton’ to you, Quinton.”

He laughed. “Fine, then.”

Quinton wove through the remainder of the left side of the room, holding up the meter to cables and panels now and then. Finding nothing, he returned to the center of the floor, and spun slowly with it out at arm’s length.

“This is an annoying place for a spectre to live in,” he remarked. “The meter keeps registering fields from the equipment. I think we ought to check the maintenance tunnels now.”

“You are not going to look through the other side of the room?”

He tossed his head to brush a lock of hair from his eyes. “No.”

“Not even to make certain?”

He thought for a moment, touching his silver locket with one finger. “This is going to sound mad, but…when you have been doing this long enough, you start to get a feel for whether a spectre is in an area. Walking through there, I got a sense of what the atmosphere of this place is like, and I can tell the spectre is not around. It is very slight, but the air near a spectre tends to feel like the air outside just before it storms.”

“As though it is charged?” He looked puzzled, and she added, “With static electricity?”

“Something like that. Not enough to make one’s hair stand on end, but enough to make one feel uneasy. Let’s go down to the tunnels.”

The two of them crossed over to a stairwell, climbing carefully down a wrought-iron staircase to the passages below. Vivaine could feel the air grow colder as they descended underground, and shivered in spite of herself.

When they stood at the head of a long tunnel, the little jaundiced light on the meter barely illuminating its red brick walls and riveted steam pipes, Quinton took a deep breath of the stale air. “Yes, this is it.”

“The spectre is here?” Vivaine’s eyes went wide.

“Definitely.” He looked down at the meter, whose needle shuddered halfway up the gauge. “Remember to stay behind me, and try not to shoot me, please.”

He must have heard fear in her voice. “I won’t,” she replied curtly, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

They trod cautiously on the dirt floor, stepping around mud puddles when they saw them, ears pricked for some sound beyond the hiss of a leaky pipe and the drip of water. Ahead of them loomed pitch blackness, and Vivaine hoped dearly that that yellow light would not fail them. It wasn’t the darkness that scared her, but the fact that the creature lurking in it didn’t often rely on sight.

Rather, experiments had shown that spectres had a very keen sense of smell, and perhaps, some electrical sense humans had never quite evolved to grasp. It didn’t need light to know they were there, and compared to it, she and Quinton were blind.

“I bet there are rats down here,” Quinton whispered. “It probably lives off of those. So if you see something move near your feet—”

“Yes, yes,” she snapped.

They came to a junction that branched off into two tunnels, which he each pointed the meter at in turn. Vivaine motioned him aside, uncorked her flask, and set it firmly down on the ground.

“Fair enough,” he said. “I would have waited until we got a bit closer, but at least it covers both directions.”

They went off down the tunnel to the right. Quinton watched the meter furiously, his eyes darting to it with every step he took, the needle arcing wildly at times, but remaining near the halfway mark. Once, he pointed his revolver towards the darkness, only to have a rat dart past them, nearly running over Vivaine’s foot, its black eyes glittering as it passed in and out of the light.

He caught the expression of relief on her face, and grinned. “I take it you do not mind rats.”

“I have dissected so many mice before, rodents rarely bother me. Not to mention when that could have been something much worse.”

Quinton took four more steps, and stopped dead.

Vivaine’s gaze flickered to the needle, which trembled at a high reading, not coming down. She and he stood, frozen in place, and waited.

Eventually, Quinton bent, very slowly, and set down his flask. He motioned to Vivaine, and the two of them began to walk backwards, fingers tight around the handles of their revolvers.

His free hand closed around hers in the shadows, and she stared at him. He nodded towards the ceiling.

“Keep your eyes up there,” he whispered.

She did as she was told, watching the rust-edged pipes and darkened lightbulbs for any movement.

The suspense was almost painful. It seemed like an eternity before they finally stopped some distance from the flask, and Vivaine could breathe again. She faced Quinton to make a comment, but he held a finger to his lips and sank into a sitting position to wait some more.

She squatted next to him, trying not to dirty her skirt. Her focus drifted to the gauge, and a gasp escaped her lips as, without warning, the needle jumped again.

Vivaine had a brief glimpse of something wide and dark, rounded at the edges like some malignant puddle, before her hand came up and she fired at the wall, a foot or two above Quinton’s head. The sound echoed like a cannon, ricocheting through the tunnel, and Quinton scrambled to his feet, grabbed Vivaine’s arm and took off running, towards his flask.

He turned, yanking her behind him, and held out the light. The spectre rose up before them, as tall as the tunnel, its eyespots glistening like butterfly wings.

“It’s massive!” Vivaine exclaimed.

A long, murky protrusion shot out from its liquid-like body, and Quinton fired—once, twice. It fell back, into the darkness as he and Vivaine scampered to the end of the tunnel, backing up against the brick wall.

A moment went by, Vivaine’s heart pounding in her ears. Quinton leaned forward, listening hard.

There came the scrape of glass against gravelly dirt, barely audible. Vivaine took a step, and Quinton held an arm in front of her to prevent her from going anywhere.

Another moment, and he began to walk, slowly, carefully, until the flask came into view.

The top portion of the spectre had invaded the glass container, enveloping the piece of meat inside. The rest of it was slowly seeping inside, filling the wide base.

Vivaine had seen the process many times before, and a frown showed on her face as more of the spectre’s mass, in lurching contractions, squeezed down the narrow part of the flask.

“It is not going to fit!”

“Perhaps it will, I’ve caught larger ones than—”

With a snap, a crack appeared at the neck of the container. Vivaine and Quinton exchanged glances.

“Come on!” Quinton yelled, and dragged her down the tunnel, just as the flask exploded into a rain of sharp fragments.

They sprinted back to the junction, passed Vivaine’s flask, and took to the stairs, their footsteps deafening in the cramped stairwell. Up on the ground floor, Quinton ducked behind one of the columns beneath the engines, and gestured for Vivaine to hide nearby. She bent down behind a panel of switches.

“What are we going to do now?” she hissed. “Do you have a bigger container? A box? Anything?”

He shook his head. “What am I, a walking store-room?”

“Then how are we going to capture it?”

The spectre floated up the stairwell and hovered at the doorway for a moment, rippling.

Quinton leaned over and whispered, “This one is particularly strong. I have dealt with two or three of its type before…even if I had a larger flask, it would still break out. We simply must get rid of it.”

“You mean kill it? You cannot kill it! We need only make a run for the door, get a different sort of container, and come back!”

“And in the eyes of Mr. Bostwick, what would that look like? It would look as though we are complete cowards, running from fear! Miss Stratton, I really don’t want that on my reputation—”

“Well then, I will go!”

“You cannot, I—”

Vivaine jumped up and turned to dash out, but Quinton caught her ankle, causing her to yelp in surprise. She stumbled, nearly fell, and glanced up to see the spectre spreading to enshroud her.

Bang!

A bullet ripped through the creature’s fluid form, near its eyespots. A thick, mucus-like substance dripped from the wound, leaving a deep, reddish stain on Vivaine’s vest.

Quinton seized her arm, yanking her over to the other side of the room, behind one of the colossal flywheels.

“What was that?! Why in hell did you do that?!” she cried. “You—you almost shot through its head! You should have aimed for the pseudopods!”

“The what?”

“The pseudopods—the projections from the sides of its body! It is like an amoeba, when it moves, it—”

“I really do not care right now!” Quinton retorted, his voice strangely strained. “That is not my first priority—look here, Miss Stratton!”

He held up his silver locket and undid its tiny clasp, flipping it open to reveal a miniature photograph of a woman with long, dark hair.

“Sephra Ashford, once a maid at the Falkland Inn in Lamport. The owners had neglected to deal with a spectre haunting the place, and it caught her while she was down in the cellar near the end of the day. It enveloped her so quickly that no one heard a thing, and her bones were all that were left the next morning.”

The spectre swept around the wheel, and Quinton fired on it again, disorienting it long enough for he and Vivaine to rush across the room and take cover elsewhere.

“The bastardly thing burned her clean—there wasn’t a scrap of flesh left on her! She had the most beautiful face, the brightest eyes, and the thing left none of that! Miss Stratton, I do enjoy the adventure, I do savor the thrill, but the true reason why I became an exterminator is not for my sake—it is because I never want that to happen again. Call it childish, but—I want to save a few people in this world! I want to protect people from these creatures, and I would not be able to live with myself if something happened to you!”

He shut the locket, regarding her seriously, and for a second, Vivaine was speechless.

Then the spectre rose up behind him, and she screamed.

“Look out!”

He swung around and fired. The shot went wild, rebounding off a walkway railing, and the spectre slammed into him, knocking him onto his back. He skidded for a short distance across the smooth concrete, attempting to struggle out from beneath the creature, and freed his arm enough to jam his revolver into its side. Its grasp weakened a little as mucus exploded from the wound—but not enough.

He pulled the trigger again, and heard the click of an empty barrel. His vision blurred, and a pain-laced dizziness swam over his mind…his struggles grew weaker, he couldn’t tell what he was doing anymore…

As his thoughts faded into unconsciousness, there was a vague, echoing blast, as though from a distance, and a jolt passed through the spectre. The spectre heaved a shudder, then, with a sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan, retreated in on itself, shrinking to the size of a carriage wheel and leaving a fine layer of acid on his clothes in the process.

Quinton, his wits returning to him, scrambled up a bit too quickly, and had to grab onto a pipe to keep from falling over. He stared at Vivaine and watched her arm lower, holding her still-smoking revolver.

“…You killed it,” he said, stating the obvious.

“If I had let it harm you,” she replied, “I would not have been able to live with myself.”

She stepped over to the spectre’s corpse and prodded it with one foot. “It is a shame, though. We could have run some fascinating experiments with one of this size…”

“I was nearly burnt to death and you are thinking of experiments.” Quinton laughed. “My God, Vivaine.”

Vivaine just smiled.


*


“Considering what happened back there, I do not think this is enough.”

“I thought you did this job to save lives, Quinton, not for the money.”

“Please,” Quinton begged, pocketing the wad of bills in his mildly scorched coat, “Do not tell anyone about that. I mustn’t have people thinking I am actually a virtuous person at heart.”

“Because it would so ruin your reputation?” She grinned wickedly.

“It would. By the way, you really should smile more often. You look magnificent when you do.”

Vivaine snorted at that, but her grin didn’t fade.

“So do you have a burning desire to return to the university right now, empty-handed, or would you rather do something enjoyable first?” he asked.

“What do you mean by ‘enjoyable?’”

“I mean, I would like to take you to dinner.”

She crossed her arms. “Well, I have to consider my reputation. Whether I should allow myself to be seen dining with someone like you.”

“I promise I will try not to embarrass such a refined, delicate lady.”

“Delicate? I just shot an animal through the head to prevent you from being digested. I do suppose that you are indebted to me for that.”

“Let me pay off my debt, then. Tonight.”

She thought about for a few seconds longer, simply to annoy him.

“I suppose you may. But you are taking me somewhere upscale, not to some bar.”

“Of course. Only the best for…what is your profession called again? Butterfly collector?”

She lightly smacked him. “Zoologist, you bastard.”

“Yes, that was it. Only the best for my dear zoologist.”

He moved to link his arm around hers, but her hand caught his forearm first.

“No—you lead me around enough in there,” she said, giving it a forceful yank. “This time, I am dragging you.”