An Eye for an Eye

It was eerily quiet.

Save for the rhythmic tick of the analogue clock hanging in the living room where John and Red silently cuddled. He squeezed her gently in his embrace, in the hopes that it would calm her and help him grapple his own welling anxiety. But it was a small comfort at best; the silence and uncertainty was suffocating, yet nobody seemed to have the voice to distract them with idle chatter.

An Order Knight sat in a chair nearby, fully armoured and staring severely out the darkened window that looked over the street below. John had followed Reginald’s instructions of what to do if something went wrong and contacted the reception desk of the complex. There had been a brief panic as John hastily warned of an imminent attack, but nearly two hours later, no attack had come. But Red was unwavering in her belief that Vulpis was here in Springfield, and John didn’t doubt her. Nothing else seemed to spook her in quite the same way that her father could.

So, for their safety, they were barred from leaving the premises until the Order assessed whether or not there was a threat. But the lack of news was frightening. Even Saccha, who was usually a non-stop source of snark and colourful language, glumly sat on a vase of flowers, idly flicking the petals in silence.

Suddenly, a knock on the front door brought everybody to attention. After verifying the identity of the visitor, a second Knight, who was posted at the door, let the guest in.

“John,” a familiar, redheaded Warden said softly upon her entry.

The fact that she wore a full, chainmail hauberk told John that the situation was a serious one, but despite the circumstances, John couldn’t help but feel happy upon seeing her. Though it may simply have been the relief of seeing a friendly face. “Moira,” he replied, standing up to greet her. “Is there any news? What’s going on?”

Any relief he may have felt was swiftly washed away by anxiety as he noticed her pale face and crestfallen eyes. “You all need to come with me.”

“Why? What’s happened? Where’s my father?!” Red pressed for information.

“There’s been an… incident,” Moira said evasively. “But several Knights have been killed.”

Suddenly it clicked for John. The words of Richard’s prophecy, which he had put off thinking about the whole day, came back to him.

‘It seeks ****, you surely know why, limb for limb, eye for eye.’

It was obvious, really. If John had stopped to really think about it instead of pretending like everything was okay, he might have prevented it. He’d taken Red from Vulpis, and now Vulpis had repaid in kind.

“What happened to my Mom?!” John demanded, doing a poor job at not shouting Moira.

“I’m sorry, all we know for certain is that she’s missing,” Moira replied, eyes wide and full of sympathy. “We’re hoping the three of you can shed some light on the situation. But before you see it, you need to know that it might be difficult for you to see.”

“I don’t care,” John replied quickly, though his voice lacked confidence. “If my Mom is in danger, I’ll do whatever it takes to protect her. Let’s go.”

“Okay,” Moira nodded, taking his hand and squeezing gently. “I swear to you the Order won’t rest until your mother is safe and sound.”

John only managed a weak smile in reply.

They were quickly escorted into the garage where Reginald awaited them with an SUV. The car ride was strained with an apprehensive silence for the first few minutes, until Reginald took it upon himself to replace it with the Greatest Hits of the ‘80s. It wasn’t an unwelcome attempt at easing the tension but ultimately served as nothing more than background noise for John. At least Reginald seemed to enjoy the music.

Finally, the SUV rolled up the driveway of the Newman residence, but John was out before it had even been parked. Yet despite his rush, he hesitated on the doorstep. It was surreal to think how a home he, just a few hours ago, thought of as warm and inviting could now feel so cold and hostile, despite there being no noticeable change to the exterior.

It was only after Red quietly moved to his side and took his hand in hers that John swallowed the last of his uncertainty and pushed open the door.

“Oh god…” Red let out, before covering her mouth with her free hand.

It was like an artist with a macabre disposition had decided to make a gallery of John’s house. The walls had been decorated with an abstract of blood and guts, pulled from the first of the Order’s Knights, whose corpse lay slumped against a shattered dresser. His full plate armour had been ripped open from the front, along with his rib cage, which was now lodged in the woodwork of the opposite wall. It was one thing to see pictures of a human’s internal organs in biology class, it was another to see them in all their fleshy detail, to breathe in the scent of blood and bodily acids that pervaded the air. It was as John registered these details that the contents of his stomach rebelled, finding their way onto the hallway floor.

“By the Lady, I’ve never laid witness to such carnage,” Moira breathed as she too stepped into the house, Saccharine silently flying behind her. “What kind of monster could do such a thing?”

“My father,” Red spat while she gently rubbed John’s back.

“That fatherless goat-humper, Vulpis,” Saccharine added, with an equal amount of venom dripping from her usually quite melodic voice.

It took John a few minutes to recover. The three girls waited patiently, looking on with sympathetic gazes or casting tentative looks towards the gruesome husk nearby.

The horror wasn’t any better in the living room. The second Knight’s head lay on the couch, staring at its darkened reflection on the blank screen of the TV with a vapid expression. The rest of his body slumped across the kitchen counter, among a number of smashed plates and glasses, where he was being attended by an Order Coroner. There must have been multiple attackers, given that the claw marks that had diced his armour were of varying sizes.

The coroner gave them a brief glance as they took in the scene. “If you lot happen to find some stray fingers, let me know. Oh, and your father is upstairs with the last body,” he muttered before turning his eyes back to the corpse beside him. The best anyone could manage in response was a slight nod, before they reluctantly trudged up the steps to discover whatever freshly painted hell awaited them.

They found Lord Brighton praying over the corpse of the final Knight just outside John’s mother’s bedroom. It seemed, at least, that the Order had fought Vulpis with everything they had to protect his mother, such was the duty they had been assigned. The last Knight was relatively intact compared to the other two victims. Instead of an array of torn armour and diced flesh, his face had been burned black, as if someone had shoved a blowtorch in it.

“I have not seen such vicious savagery in a long time,” Lord Brighton spoke quietly once his prayer had finished. “You were right to seek our help, John Newman. Though, I must express my sorrowful apologies; I did not expect this… monster to so daringly attack a mundane household. It is a mistake that weighs heavily upon my heart.

“I don’t understand… how could this happen? How could he get away with doing this in the real world?” John stammered.

“To put it bluntly, it was not public enough,” Lord Brighton replied grimly. “Do you hear any police sirens? Neither do I. The neighbourhood is none-the-wiser that a crime occurred in this household, let alone that the Abyss exists.”

That answer didn’t satisfy John in the slightest. It seemed wrong that something so horrifying could creep into the real world from the Abyss and get away with it. But there were more pressing matters to investigate than complaining about what had already happened; even John in his anxious and nauseous state could recognise that much.

“Where is my mom?” he asked, hoping vainly that Lord Brighton might be able to assure him that she was somehow safe and sound, despite already possessing knowledge to the contrary.

“That is unclear, at this point in time,” Lord Brighton replied, placing a sympathetic hand on John’s shoulder. “We were hoping that perhaps Miss Perrault could illuminate some things for us.”

“I-I’ll do anything I can to help,” Red agreed immediately.

Lord Brighton nodded before turning back to the Knight with the burnt face. “I wasn’t aware that the Perrault family could count a fire mage among them,” he said, showing clear reproach for the practice in his voice.

“We don’t,” Red replied, sounding confused. “At least none that I’m aware of.”

“Then he must have sourced outside assistance, mercenaries or perhaps an allied guild,” the Brighton patriarch pondered, placing a thumb on his chin. “Either way, it seems we will have to wait until our forensics examine the body for more information. In the meantime, might I ask you to take a look in the bedroom?” he said, gesturing to Brenda’s room.

John gulped as he stepped inside. His mom’s room was in total disarray. The bed sheets and mattress had been ripped apart, littering the floor with torn strands of cloth and chunks of foam everywhere.

‘Mom must have been asleep when they came in to take her,’ John thought, unable to stop his body from shaking in anger. ‘And struggled when they tried to seize her.’

But for all the mess and gore John had borne witness to thus far, there was one crucial detail missing. “He didn’t leave a message? No ransom note or any indication of what he wants?”

“Nothing that we could find, no,” Lord Brighton confirmed. “Miss Perrault, you are our expert; perhaps you have some insight you can share?”

John looked to Red hopefully for answers. Her normally gorgeous blue eyes were bloodshot and sunken, but she gave him a weak smile before turning to answer the Brighton patriarch. “There’s normally no need for a time and place. He’ll call tomorrow at midnight, and I’ll be able to find him. As for his demands, well… there’s only one thing he could want in return for John’s mom…”