Armitage

Chapter 10 - Madeline's Mistake

‘So the compound is ready now?’ asked Madeline hopefully.

‘Yes, I scraped what time I could in the various laboratories that I came across in my travels. I have even been using your university’s Chemistry Department for a short while, but I conducted the final test recently and the compound is indeed ready.’

‘But if you’ve been on campus so much how has Mason not known? Can’t he sense you or something?’

‘Mason is nothing if not arrogant,’ said Sebastian bitterly. ‘He may have been able to sense my presence if he thought it worth doing so, but I am sure that his confidence that he dealt with me the last time we met meant that I was able to slip by unnoticed, simply because he did not think to look for me.’ Madeline looked nervously at her hands as Sebastian spoke, realising that she may have alerted Mason to his presence.

‘Sebastian I’m sorry but I think I…’

‘Told Mason about me, yes I know.’ Madeline looked up in shock but saw that Sebastian’s face wore an expression of understanding and not anger or annoyance.

‘How did you know?’ she asked, feeling relieved that he didn’t seem to mind but curious of how he could know.

‘I have been keeping tabs on you shall we say for a while now, I knew Mason had chosen you so I knew I had to find out what kind of person you were. I cannot tell you how relieved I was when I saw that you are a sensible and level headed woman.’

‘Thank you,’ said Madeline, feeling slightly embarrassed.

‘I mean no offence to women but some of the flighty little things that caught his eye were utterly useless, and I could not get them to listen to me for love nor money.’

‘And they died because they didn’t listen to you?’ asked Madeline gravely.

‘I am afraid so.’ Sebastian went quiet for a moment, remembering all the times that, in his mind, he had failed in stopping Mason.

‘You mentioned meeting Mason before, and him thinking that you’d been dealt with,’ said Madeline after a few seconds silence. ‘What did you mean?’

‘Well as I said, I have been trying for some time to put a stop to his demonic pastimes, and on one such occasion things came to a head.’

‘What happened?’

‘It was sometime in between the World Wars, and I had tracked Mason to a small town in Northern France, some eighty or so miles from Paris. He had set his sights on a local maiden, the Mayor’s daughter in fact, and I tried in vain to speak with her of the danger that she was in.’

‘Wouldn’t she listen to you?’

‘I am afraid not, for you see Mason had twisted this poor girl so wholly and completely to his will that she had fallen in love with him.’

‘What?’

‘Yes, his forms of sick amusement took many forms, but they all ended in the same gruesome way, which was why I was determined to make this girl realise the mistake she was making.’

‘So what happened?’ asked Madeline, feeling like she was being the told the plot to some kind of film rather than events that were supposed to have happened.

‘No matter what I tried I could not get through to the girl, so smitten was she with Mason’s cruel charm that I decided to try her father, the Mayor.’

‘What did he have to say?’

‘Unfortunately, I had not anticipated that Mason had woven his evil magic on both the girl and her father, so my pleas once again fell on deaf ears.’