Esteemed Malevolence

XLI: Sacrifice

Eva shoved the squawking woman off her, eyes wide with anger as she fought against the woman's claws. She cried out in pain as the woman dragged sharp fingernails down her forearm, where her bullet wound was tender since it was still healing from all that time ago.

It had been the last straw for the undertaker, and with one hard blow from her bruised fist to the side of the woman's skull, the woman fell down the bottom-half of stairs with a pathetic wheeze, her body clattering to the grungy ground - next to a few other cannibals that the undertaker had managed to cut down.

Eva caught her breath, her eyes briefly glancing over the woman's face. She recognised it from somewhere...

It was then that she realised that the woman had been a regular customer. When she thought a little more, she remembered that she often had her son with her... Nathaniel, she believed he was called.

She prayed that the boy was safe. It was like a rabid mess of bloody viscera and gnashing teeth out there in the courtyard and surrounding street below. Any adult would not have stood a chance, so help a child.

A dense lot of erratic footsteps from the barber shop, which was situated at the top of the staircase, caused her to snap out of her thoughts, and heavy concern washed over her. She clenched her teeth, still resisting the urge to turn back and give into her desires. With every step closer to the landing, she exhaled a visible breath, telling herself that she would be no better than the wretched scum roaming the cobbles below, if she was to surrender to her macabre addiction.

Too focused on keeping her mind free from any temptation to feast, she let out a shrill gasp and flicked her eyes up when she witnessed a man violently shoulder-barging his way through Mr Todd's (now completely wrecked) door.

Her first reaction was to rush the rest of the way up the stairs as he stumbled around, thinking it was another disposable cannibal that had gotten too big for his boots...

But when the man appeared to jolt to a pause just outside the door, stood motionless as he peered over the banister, she realised his reaction was absurdly human - presumably he'd just laid eyes upon the cannibalistic devastation going on down below.

As she carefully placed her feet on each stair in hopes of making some staircase progression, she took the opportunity to study him. The man was wearing well tailored-clothes, which was ironic considering that if he was planning on going downstairs, every part of him would be ripped to pieces either way.

It soon became clear to her, even from a side-angle, that it was the same dark blonde man she'd seen on Hampstead Heath that Sunday. He was an avid entrepeneur and a well renowned tailor from Northern Italy... but most importantly, a man she had far too many dark memories of from her sinister past.

It was obvious to Eva why he must have been there - the man wanted to lure her in back into his manipulative mitts, or perhaps he was the whole reason the meat had gone missing in the first place? Perhaps it had been a whole revenge plan on his part, for what she'd done to one of his employees?

She could have spat a train of insults out at him, and she really did want to... but she decided she'd rather not alert him before she administered her first strike.

So, she instead quietly tip-toed across the walkway, advancing towards him slowly.

Annoyingly, the dark-blonde man noticed her in his peripheral vision and swivelled on his heels, his blue-green eyes already dancing with amused suggestion as they settled upon her.

As the touch of a smirk reached his pouting lips, it told her enough to know that he most definitely had something to do with the riot taking place across the entire of Fleet Street. And to that she could only clench her fists, propelling one of them in front of her as she hurtled herself towards him in a mesmerising fit of rage.