If the blood could have been any warmer, my fingers would start to cook themselves. The thick liquid coated my hands like a gentle silk sheet. It was one of my favorite sensations. Rising, I dusted the gravel from my long, brown dress. My eyes had just settled on the body laying at my feet when a figure leaned around the corner.
"Lydia, let's go! I can see candlelight up the stairs, they're coming." the voice ushered.
My reply was curt and firm. "Haven't I told you I'm the queen of hide and seek? They'll never find me down here. If they do, it'll be the end of them."
"Is this a joke to you, Lydia?" There was a pause. "And don't you mean 'us'?"
I rolled my eyes, ignoring his question. "Can you stop calling me Lydia? I chose that name 200 years ago, it's a bit old now, don't you think?"
Voices, filled with anger and fear, echoed down the spiralling stairwell.
My accomplice opened his mouth for another remark, but I beat him to it. "Yes, I know. They're coming."
I dropped low, balancing on the platforms of my feet. The golden locks of my young female victim were starting to look like a rats nest. Catching a scrap of decency in the breeze, I put her hair back over her shoulders. The girl would have resembled Sleeping Beauty if her throat and abdomen had not been torn out. I took a long, deep breath, reciting the name of the victim over and over in my mind.
"They're on the last flight. I know this is a mansion with three stories, but can you have a little concern that we might get caught? And hurry up?" the voice said again.
My shoulders drooped at his comment. I shot him a dry stare, my maroon eyes flashing. Glancing at the basement window, I smiled a grim smile. "You take the fun out of everything, you know that?"
I stepped over the body, walking my own pace over to the windows, unlatching them, and shoving them open with ease. Even though the height from the ground to the windows themselves is 7 feet, I had no problem jumping up and in the small opening, nor did I have trouble opening it. It was only when I had gotten myself out did I alert my partner.
"Alright, Ewan, you can come over now." I told him.
He was throwing up so much dust as he hurried over that it almost made me cough. I turned around, laying flat on my stomach and poking my head back through the window. Ewan stopped and gave me an inquisitive look. "What are you doing? Let me up."
I sighed. "You see, Erin, I-"
"Ewan." He corrected.
I forced my best fake smile. "Right, Ewan. I need a scapegoat and an escape plan."
"The window was your escape plan. Guess what, you're out!" He exclaimed, glancing behind him and seeing the first man turn the corner into the basement.
"Dear Lord!" the sight of the body made him lose his balance, and he stumbled into the basement. "What could have committed such an atrocity?"
"My escape plan wasn't the window... it was you, Eret." I brought my gaze down back to him.
His green eyes widened like two full moons.
"That's right, get it all out." I rolled my eyes.
"How could you do this to me?"
"How could I? Easy. I just did."
"You bitch!"
"Language, Erin!"
"Why are you doing this, Lydia?"
"Why?" I tilted my head. "Well, when they finally get over the shock of the dead body behind you, guess who they're going for? And with you captured and eventually dead, they will believe that they've caught the mysterious London Leviathan. And a plus one for me; I'll have all my loose ends tied up with you dead and gone."
