This chapter is dedicated to @DAJB01 who's just amazing! His Abhorrent Practices is one of the best Wattpad epic-fantasies I've read and just epic-fantasies period. There's a lot of assassination, seafaring and some interesting reference work he's got going on. He's also a really friendly and all 'round awesome kind of guy. I strongly suggest you give his story a look.

"Our world, like a charnel-house, is strewn with the detritus of dead epochs."

--Le Corbusier, Towards A New Architecture

I didn't have to sit too long.

It was the man with the wolf's head who opened the doorway first. Peter, his name was, if I remembered correctly. And she pattered behind him with her feline face. Laura. The one who banished me.

For good reason, I suppose.

They assembled much quicker than I thought they would. Most of them. The cats, the ethereal half-beings, the Yakuza. They were all there, and there was room for them all. They said nothing to each other, not looking around, not moving. Their eyes were on me.

The dark little room stank of rotting cat-corpse. The revolutionary's head was on the table next to me. Flies buzzed around it. Strange little red flies, covered in blood.

I waited.

Then, I spoke.

"You are waiting for the end. I have come to deliver it. But I need the rotting thing back."

The old cat coughed. "The tail? It was taken from you?"

"It was. By the one you call Violet. The guardian of the Underworld."

A hushed gasp.

xxx

I feel cold. Winter is pressing at the windows. Frost covers them, creeping in from the edges.

He should warm me, but he doesn't. That surprised me the first time we did it. A couple of weeks ago. He was warm and strong and he did not comfort me, as much as he tried. He was not my strength.

I had put too much stock in him.

Who was he?

Just plain old Vikram. Smoked like a factory worker and held his head up high, even when he was called a nigger too big for his breeches. But that wasn't enough to comfort me, was it? Nothing was.

He always tasted of smoke and the precious few times we kissed before we moved here, I loved that. I relished that taste of firewood crumbling in the night. I didn't anymore.

He is asleep and I trace patterns on his arm, where his stupid tattoo is. I kiss it.

No comfort for me.

xxx

"And now you want our help?"

"We are all the same, aren't we?" I said.

"You killed the revolutionary and the prophet and now you want to kill us all."

"Because it has to be done." I shout.

"Does it, now?" The head of the Yakuza asks. The man with the tentacles for eyes. The swim towards me. "Things will play out on their won. We will continue our work till the very end but that blood shall not be on our hands."

"I agree." Laura said. "We aren't killers. We won't kill ourselves."

"But it has to be done!" I said. "Don't you see?"

"This argument is useless. The one called Violet has found the rotting thing, and she seeks to destroy it. And she will find a way." The Yakuza got up and made their way to the door.

xxx

"Vik." I say.

"Hmm." he says.

"Do you like my name?"

He puts his arms around me and holds me close. "Of course I do. Kripa is a very pretty name."

I giggle. "I don't like it very much, though."

"Why not?"

"It doesn't mean anything to me."

"It doesn't have to, stupid. It's just a name." he swats me on the head with his finger.

I giggle again.

"But I want another name."

"What about Grace?"

"That's just Kripa in English. It's not a new name."

"I know! Dora the Explorer!"

I swat him on the head, this time. "I want to be called Violet."

"Violet? Why? You said your favourite colour was green."

"It's yellow." I say, quietly.

"Oh. Sorry. But why Violet?"

"I don't know. I like how it sounds."

"Violet it is, then."

He kisses me and I taste his cigarette smoke, but all I can think of is Violet.

Violet.

xxx

They tried to open the door but couldn't.

"You've locked us in, have you?"

The tentacle-man says. His friends pull their guns out of their holsters and point them straight at me.

"...SOMEONE STRUGGLES WITH THE SOFT SYBYLLANCE OF THE HOWLS THAT RIP THE NIGHT APART FROM THE EAST AND FROM THE WEST THE HOWLING WINDS AND THE CHARNEL HOUSES HAUNTED BY OH HAUNT OH HAUNT THAT WORD I MUST BE SWEPT AWAY ALONG THAT CHANNEL AND I MUST BE BROUGHT BACK TO THE MATTER AT HAND OH BRING ME BACK MY BEAUTIFUL THINGS BRING..."

The cats scream.

"...YOU DON'T HAVE TO FEAR ME CRAWLERS AND TRAVERSES OF THE UPPER HEAD AND SINEWS OF THE SPIRIT YOU ARE ALL MY FRIENDS AND LOVERS AND I HAVE LOVED AND DO LOVE YOU WITH A PASSION AND INTENSITY YOU CANNOT UNDESRTAND BUT OUR PROCEEDINGS MUST PROCEED AND WE MUST MOVE ON TO OUR CHARNEL DESTINY DEATH COMES SWIFTLY AND WE ARE WAITING AND ANSWERING COME HERE YOU..."

The tentacle-man rose into the air, his arms and legs flailing, his screams silent hisses. His tentacles danced in the air, trying to get away from something. Then they were separated from he.

They fell to the floor and continued limply, trying to escape.

"...WE MUST CORRECT AND IMPROVE ON THESE THINGS THEY ARE RIDICULOUS AND THEY DISGUST ME WHAT ARE THEY WHY DO WE EVEN CALL THEM GUARDIANS AND SECURITY IN OUR MOMENT OF NEED THEY DO NOTHING TO HELP US THEY ONLY FLUTTER FORWARDS AND BACKWARDS DO NOT LISTEN BEAUTIFUL THINSG TO THIS FOUL CREATION GO FORTH AND DO WHAT YOUR SAVIOR DESIRES DO...."

The cats ran helter-skelter, looking for some way out.

"We'll do it!"

A female cat. Possibly the one who offered me a seat.

"We'll do what you want."

Cats were flying into the air and being chopped in half.

"...REALY? THAT WOULD SATISFY ME MOST CERTAINLY I WOULD FEEL IN FULL CONTROL OF THIS SITUATION THAT YOU HAVE PRESENTED BEFORE OR TO BE PRECISE WAS PRESENTED AGES AND AGES BEFORE BECAUSE YOU UNDERSTAND BEAUTIFUL THINGS WE MUST FINISH WHAT WE STARTED..."

I felt me feet rising from the ground. I fell. I was held upside down by something I couldn't see."

"...AND YOU KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOUR DO YOU AGREE AND VOW TO FINISH THE JOB YOU HAVE STARTED BECAUSE TIME IS TICKING AND WE DON'T HAVE MUCH OF IT LEFT SO BE STEADFAST AND FINISH AND THEN YOU MAY PERHAPS EVEN BE ALLOWED TO GO HOME, PROVIDED YOU KNOW THE WAY..."

"I shall." I told it.

"...THEN I SHALL TAKE MY LEAVE GOODBYE BEAUTIES GOODBYE LOVERS AND FRIENDS GOODBYE..."

xxx

Violet is my name. I have something now to give me comfort. Something that I won't have to leave behind.

I sit up, naked and cold and let the blanket fall to my waist. The cat clambers on to me and I hold it close.

Violet. That's my name.

Violet.

I hope you enjoyed that! Please let me know if all the jumping around and multiple POVs in one chapter is too much.

Thanks for all the support. I really do appreciate it. Please let me know if I can improve in any way.

Cheers!