Chapter 18

Princess Cecilia Beatrice the Second, member of House Lardoss was having a wonderful day. She woke up to the sweet sounds of a Malidor bird chirping outside her bedroom window, the animal was known for heralding the start of summer, a good omen, also her birthday.

The arrangements have been in the making for weeks, invitations were sent, decorations put up and her father even ordered a few magicians from the academy to provide fireworks for the ceremony! She couldn’t wait.

The celebration was wonderful, all her friends from school gave her presents but mother’s was the best of course, a unicorn of all things! Cecilia bragged to her playmates how awesome the horse was and how expensive it was trying to capture it, it was so beautiful, the unicorn’s flanks would produce magical glow dust in a pretty rainbow pattern as it ran over the crowds below the wall.

It was a shame her oldest sister wasn’t here, she was away on some mission or other, claiming she was too busy to attend Cecilia’s birthday, hmph! Cecilia knew who wasn’t going to ride her unicorn!

Looking around the pavilion something caught her eye, a little sparkle glinting in the sun, it was annoying at first but ten she saw what it actually was, a crystal rose, floating in the air like a divine gift from the gods, every curve a pristine gem, as if the sun itself wanted to make sure everyone in the whole world was aware of its magnificence. It was the perfect gift.

And just like that, it was crushed, it’s beauty shattered by a fist which grabbed on to flower and crumpled it within the palm of its hand, snapping Cecilia out of her reverie.

“Aww no fair, I wanted it!” She cried out, distraught as her present disappeared. But then she noticed the owner of the hands which crushed her precious rose. A man, a very strange man, his features were striking to say the least, but he somehow just seemed so… wrong. As if the parts of his face were grown individually before being stuck on his head, each aspect was definitely handsome on its own, but they failed to meld together giving the man a strange unearthly appearance, the rest of his body was strange as well, thin yet quite buff, going against the laws of physics as those legs shouldn’t be able to support that amount of mass, his posture was off too, leaning back in a permanent pelvic thrust as if he couldn’t lean forward, and then he spoke, his voice a bit nasal and slightly too high to be a man’s.

“Fuck me you’re ugly.”

Cecilia was confused, who was he talking to? All nobles were beautiful, that’s how the world worked, was he perhaps mad? Talking to himself like an imbecile? And rude too, swearing in public like that, only servants and beast master Josef would curse like that, and they always made sure to never be in public when they did it too, but Cecilia caught them doing it occasionally when she tried to sneak up on them, she was quite proud of how silent and lithe she was on her feet, like a panther stalking its prey, she mused. But Cecilia was snapped out of her musing when the strange man started walking her way.

Jason was flabbergasted.

The girl was like a meat patty from McDonalds, squashed and rotund. Flabber stuck out of her from more places than Jason thought was possible, and her face was disgusting, imagine Jabba the hut’s head imprinted on a massive plate and that plate then pressed into the girl’s face, it was horrendous, well, Jason might have been exaggerating a bit but she was still fat, he almost felt sorry for her.

He approached the Lovecraftian monstrosity and kneeled down in front of her, placing a gentle hand on one of her shoulders and calmly looked at her beady little eyes. “I’m sorry little girl, your life must have been horrible.”

Cecilia’s face was quite red, whether from the sudden confrontation or just trying to breath, an older, blinder, family member might have called it cute, if they were very far away, looking through the dark, while looking on from behind.

“Unhand me you dirty peasant! Don’t you know who I am?” She blubbered.

Jason frowned at that before stepping away,

“I have an idea now.” He muttered.

Just then the tranquil discussion was broken as a man barged through the still awed crowd. “Who dares interrupt my daughter’s special day?” He cried, outraged.

Jason looked at the newcomer, male? Check, old? Check, bearded? Check, wearing a crown? Check. Well it seemed he just introduced himself to the crème de la crème of the nobility. The situation was spiralling quite spectacularly out of control, from trying to get lucky, to apologizing, to calling a princess ugly, well why not ride the wave all the way?

“Good afternoon your majesty, my name is Professor Sullivan McGrory, I came on behalf of Baroness Felicity to give the princess here a present.”

“What? Who? I’ve never heard of a Baroness Felicity! How did you get in here?” the king huffed.

According to Jason’s deducting skills, his imperial majesty was a bit angry, it seemed no one was really buying his story either, so with a sigh Jason waved his hand and said. “It’s all true my liege, I came here because you asked the Baroness to give a present to your daughter here.”

The king furrowed his brows at that, “I did?”

“Yes your majesty, I was hired by Baroness Felicity to heal the condition your daughter has.”

The king was really confused now, “Condition? My daughter doesn’t-”

“Oh but she does. And you would do anything if it meant curing your daughter.”

“Wait a minute! You have no right-” Someone cried out from the crowd.

With a growl Jason froze every single onlooker in place, he was getting quite annoyed at all the effort he had to go to achieve this little scheme of his. The noble who spoke out of line would have no doubt created an even bigger commotion, and might have snapped the other bystanders out of their stunned silence.

“Father what’s happening?” Princess Cecilia whined.

“Hush Cecilia, don’t worry, this man is going to heal you, just listen to him and you’ll be fine” Her father said as he hugged her tightly.

“That’s right, so if you would please step this way, we should get going.” Jason said, creating a blue portal behind himself and walking through the glowing vortex.

“Father I’m scared.” Princess said as she cried quietly, “I don’t want to be healed.”

“Don’t worry my love, it will all be over soon.” The king said, tugging on the little girl’s hand slightly but firmly. And together, hand in hand, they stepped through the portal, leaving the rest of the royal family in paralysed silence.

“Glad of you to join us,” Jason said to them, “Cecilia please go over to that bench.”

The room the two nobles found themselves in was like a dungeon. The place itself was circular with a single window, which was more like an arrow slit, it was dark outside and the sound of thunder and lightning could be heard clearly. The room was made of stone and filled to the brim with alchemical equipment, beakers and notes filled the desks that were strewn about the room, but in the middle was a single slab of metal, a table of cold hard steel with nothing surrounding it. Leather straps were attached to it, like the shackles of evil, ready to hold something, or someone down.

Jason was there, standing in a labcoat and goggles, just in the process of putting a pair of rubber gloves on.

“Igor, ready the amputator.” He called out.

“Yeth masther.” A strange blob extracted himself from the corner and made its way to the metal table, to Cecilia’s horror, the thing was actually human, albeit a really deformed one. Igor was a hunchback, a limping, lisping, eye twitching hunchback.

By now Cecilia was truly crying. “I don’t want to be here! Please, can’t we just go home dad?”

The king frowned at that, then he kneeled in front of his daughter and put his hands on her face. “Listen honey, I know this is hard, and I’m asking you to trust me on this.” He said as he wiped tears off her fat, blubbery cheeks. “Do you trust me?”

Still crying, Cecilia shakily nodded.

“Thank you, now be a good girl and go over to the professor over there.” The king said as he kissed her forehead.

Cecilia, steeling herself walked over to Jason, every step a challenge as she made her way to the waiting man and his disfigured companion.

“Alright Cecilia, please get on the table.” Jason said, his face stony and impassive as Cecilia walked past him. She got up on the cold bench and Igor came over to tie her down.

“Will this hurt?” she whispered to the foul creature.

The monstrosity blinked at hers sadly before moving away.

Jason snapped his fingers. “Igor, get the tray please.” he said as he approached the sniffling Cecilia.

The room deathly still, the only sound was the clanking of the wheels as Igor dumbly pushed a trolley across the room. Jason, looking surprisingly impatient as if eager to start whatever procedure they were about to begin. Cecilia’s father stood in the corner where the portal guzzled them out, his expression vacant and his eyes glazed backwards into his skull, not blinking.

Jason looked over Cecilia with a critical eye, his goggles gleaming in the strange lamps above them. Suddenly he thrust his hand out towards Igor, “Carver.”

Mutely, Igor handed Jason a meat cleaver. Jason grasped the hilt and fingered the sharpness of the blade.

Cecilia was shaking and sobbing, trying to free herself from the bonds holding her down, “Please… Don’t do this.” She cried.

In response Jason placed the Cleaver on her thigh, and pushed.

Cecilia screamed, it was as if someone set her on fire, her nerves drowned all coherent thought except the registering of pain, the cleaver went further and further into her flesh, biting down and injecting her body with the venomous acid of agony. She screamed and cried and begged for it to stop but her pleas fell on deaf ears as the meat carver was slowly dragged down her thigh, minutely curving back outwards before coming out with a wet squelch.

Cecilia looked at Jason to see him grinning like a maniac. He grabbed the torn of chunk and lifted it for her to see, red blood oozed down from the exposed cut, dripping and soaking his pristine white coat with the crimson liquid. Cecilia howled for her life and all things good as Jason threw the cut off meat away and slowly reached down to tear then next batch off.

In desperation Cecilia tried to look for comfort with her father, hoping against hope that he’d intervene, to take her away from this place and make the pain go away, but to no avail. His dad just stood there dumbly, slightly grinning as drool pooled out of his open moth, nothing more than an animal, calmly ignoring her own daughter as she was cut up.

Cecilia was angry. Confused, scared and in pain but angry. Angry at her weakness, at her tormentor and her prison, but most of all she was angry at her father for abandoning her like this, standing there without moving to aid her, and in her last lucid moments before she fell into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness, all she could see were the goggles that hid the eyes of the devil her father gave her to.