Here Be Monsters - By M T Murphy Page 0,17
“Do me a favour, will you, cherry pie?” he whispered, with the last of his breath. “Break his fucking heart…”
His chest spasmed in a convulsive attempt to breathe, and then the monster’s body was still.
With the tip of her loaded weapon pressed firmly against his throat, the girl untangled her slashed shirt from his fingers. But he was done.
She took a picture on her phone, added the coordinates and sent the message.
By the time the recovery team arrived, she was far from the building, a girl with a black backpack and a retro-fashionable t-shirt artfully slashed to expose her young skin. One more on the streets.
*****
The house was cleaned by little robots, buzzing and zapping around the furniture. They always had a busy couple of hours after she got back from her trips, bringing a myriad of exciting new particles of dirt and germs.
Lux shed her clothes on her way up the stairs, knowing that they would be burnt anyway.
The sound of mechanical vacuums and brushes sang a comforting symphony while she bathed.
There weren’t many bruises this time. The girl examined herself, recounting old scars. They were small, but strategically dangerous, most of them caused by sharp objects, drawing a map of her mission. Many of her prey had been close enough to draw blood. Too close, it was true, but death requires closeness.
Only those such as the Beast and his well-armoured heart required other means of extermination.
She had a sandwich in the kitchen, her bare toes perched on the bar of a high stool at the breakfast counter which had never seen a breakfast.
Lux looked like anyone’s daughter. Dark honey blonde hair, clear blue eyes, slight frame. She was stronger and heavier than she appeared, but she moved like a dancer (or a trained assassin) and it made her seem weightless.
*****
Alchemic Genetics, he called it.
The Doctor’s science was a mix of alchemy, chemistry, anatomy and superstition. All these elements combined had produced his monsters, and all of the elements were necessary to destroy them.
As the body count rose, he trusted Lux more and more, to the point where he didn’t even inquire about her strategies. He simply waited for her call.
The Doctor was absorbed in a new project, and his faith in his own control over her was absolute.
As if all that she contained, all that she was, was what he had put in there—his own witch’s brew of cruel, cold potions. He allowed her to read. He was oblivious to the pathways growing through her mind, the connections being made that had turned her many pockets of knowledge into a powerful network of resources.
From herself and the others, Lux had learned that their mutations continued to evolve, just like their minds. He had archived their files too soon.
He collected hearts. Framed pages from old medical books, plastic anatomical models, the drawings of DaVinci, the speculations of the ancients…
But the heart had no secrets. Muscle and blood, entrances and exits, chambers, electric impulses, systole and diastole. No mystery.
Brains were a mystery, minds even more so. He even spoke about the aetheric spirit sometimes. And yet, there were hearts everywhere.
A memento of his old obsessions, surpassed now and forgotten. Mere decoration.
Lux’s favourite was a marble heart, an antique paperweight. It was carved from blue-veined white marble with exquisite detail, and perfectly proportioned.
Her own heartbeat was faster than it should be, faster than any human’s. Maybe she would die young, or live forever. It had worked without falter till now but, if she was ever examined by a regular doctor, it would cause some alarm.
*****
She always disliked breathing in the complex. That’s what they called the underground extension of the house, the lab, the cells, the other rooms.
The air down here was filtered, processed, fabricated gas that made her lungs cringe.
It didn’t matter that she had grown up in the complex, with precious little outdoors time. There was no nostalgia there. Who would be homesick for a plastic cell and the hum of machines keeping you alive?
But she took deep breaths and measured steps, a good little monster doing her chores. No feelings, no wishes, no superfluous thoughts.
The steel doors swooshed open, her biometric scan a flawless match.
*****
The Witch was next.
She was one of the most dangerous, not just because of her abilities but because she’d want to keep Lux alive, keep her for herself. The Witch was one of the smartest minds to escape the Doctor’s nursery.
Lux had prepared herself for a long time, studying the files, adamant about not