Vantage Point: A V for Vendetta Novel
By April French

BOOK ONE: VIS INERTIA

Author's Note

 

With respect to the reviewers who expressed concerns over V's actions in the last chapter (i.e., striking Evey), I would like to point out that I do know what out-of-character actions constitute in a serious pastiche. Also, it's not cricket for someone to claim that 'they know' what a character would do or 'would never' do, when said character is the property of someone else entirely and has a lifespan of, in this case, one movie. His life before the movie is a mystery; we know nothing about who he was, how he was raised, what kind of person he was. We don't know what he is capable of. And at this point in the story, he's struggling under the weight of mental and spiritual doubt. I'm not even sure V knows what he's capable of.

 

I've been doing this for a long time, folks. Just stick with me; it'll all make sense in the end. ~AF

 

~~~

 

Chapter Four: Vetanda

 

"vetanda" -- a forbidden thing

 

"Back of his smile, under his word

He heard music that nobody heard..."

-- Stephan Sondheim

 

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

-- Mark Twain

 

The distribution of the counterfeit coupons went off without the slightest hitch, much to Evey's relief. She and Charlotte Steerforth and Tommy Sedley were stationed at a market near Covent Garden, covertly slipping the blue pieces of paper into passing purses and knapsacks and coat pockets, palming the small bundles and giving them to other Vox members to hand out, then following the crowds and watching the ensuing mayhem with carefully disguised satisfaction.

 

"The shopkeepers and clerks were surprised at first," Hugh Drummond reported at that night's meeting. He and his wife had been covering several shops in Brixton, but the resulting chaos had been the same all over the city. "But they just assumed they'd missed an announcement about a distribution date. It wasn't until later in the day that they began to get worried. But by then, they were sold out. They ran out of stock pretty quickly, Evey. There were customers coming to blows with bakers and butchers. It was an ugly sight."

 

Evey nodded. "We saw the same. Quite a few people got chucked into the streets. The police were called to a mob riot in Paddington as well. Unfortunately, our aim has never been to make a bloodless revolution. But the people are being fed, and soon, thanks to our people at the BTN, they'll know it, so if the only other thing we've achieved today is to make the Coupon Board even more unpopular, then we've done a good day's work. Now, for the next step. Scott Corey and his people are going to meet the train coming down from Thwaite next week. Charlotte, will Isaac be ready with the devices?"

 

"He certainly hopes so. He has the materials and the tools; the trouble is finding the time, what with getting called in for overtime on account of these Ripper murders." As one, the Voxers winced.

 

In the week since the first slayings, there had been at least one death reported each night, very often more. The only pattern was the brutality, and a markedly increasing preference for Fingermen; otherwise, the killings were occurring all across London, from Knightsbridge clear across to the other side of the Thames. In each case, the surveillance cameras had been disabled--crudely but effectively. The Nose and the Finger were keeping ominously mum on the subject. The media had been less discreet, dubbing the mysterious figure "the Revolutionary Ripper" and doing all but coming out and saying precisely who Norsefire thought was behind the murders.

 

Loudly, Evey cleared her throat. "Right. Well, that can't be helped. Charlotte, if you can make it, I'll need to meet with you and Isaac at the "Tom O'Bedlam" in two nights."

 

"I can be there. If Isaac doesn't get called out again, he'll be there."

 

"Okay. Then that's a wrap for tonight. Everyone? I know I say this every time we meet, but I mean it: be careful going home. I don't want to see anybody on the morning news, for any reason."

 

They left in groups of two and three, silently and expertly avoiding the Fingermen, slipping under the watchful cameras of the Eye, quietly wending their ways homeward in stark defiance of the hated nightly curfew.

 

Evey was the last to leave, as always. Normally, she remained behind to talk privately with Dominic about one thing or another. Tonight, Dominic was busy at the Nose, but she still stayed, reluctant to go home. She did have that flat in Brixton; God only knew why she kept up the rent on it, except to have it as another place of refuge from the world around her. She certainly needed a place of refuge right now. Some place of peace...

 

She sighed, gathered up her things, and melted into the night. She had learned from V how to move through London without attracting attention, and teaching the Voxers the tricks had only honed her abilities. Feeling secure in her skills, and not wanting to face the barren place the Gallery had become, she simply wandered, wondering vaguely where the infamous killer was tonight, if she was to become his next victim, like some latter-day Mary Kelly. Doubtful, though; the Revolutionary Ripper preferred men. Serial killers did occasionally deviate from their favorite patterns--she'd learned that from the Gallery's extensive library, as well as from Isaac, whom, she had discovered, had a viciously clever and gruesome mind--and she drew out such a situation in her had as she meandered towards the monument to the Great Fire, debating idly if V would show up at the last second to rescue her, and if she would actually need his help or not.

 

Raised voices from up ahead of her slowed her step, and she thought of turning around, until she saw the flashing lights, the police cars and coroner's van.

 

Another one, she realized.

 

She spotted Isaac at the base of the monument, and signaled for him to send Dominic to her. The chief met her in the alley way half an hour later. "A Yarder this time," he reported shortly. "One of the uniforms. Looks to have been on his way home. Our boy's getting bolder, attacking in an open space like this." He sighed heavily, his breath congealing in the cold December air. "I can't blame your chum for this, can I?" Dominic asked sourly. "He'd've used more finesse."

 

Evey had to agree. "It's... definitely not his style."

 

The chief studied her out of the corner of his eye. "How 'bout that wallopin' great bruise on your head?" he asked with professional nonchalance. "That his style?"

 

Evey stiffened. "Don't even," she growled, balling her fists in her pockets. "It doesn't concern you."

 

"I'm a cop. People getting hurt damn well does concern me. Especially if you're being hurt by someone you... care about," Dominic finished flatly, steering clear of the painful word.

 

"I provoked him. It wasn't the reaction I expected, but that's my own fault. He's not been himself lately. He's... I don't know what he is. I'm not sure I know who he is at this point."

 

Dominic digested that. "So I can't be certain he isn't involved."

 

"It's not his style."

 

"But if he's gone off the deep end--"

 

"We're all off the deep end. He's always been off the deep end. Off the edges of the map..."

 

"Evey, if he's not... not safe..."

 

"You can't help me, Dominic," she said flatly. "He's gone someplace I can't follow, but I've got to bring him back just the same. I owe him that much."

 

"Christ, Evey. You've gone from Stockholm syndrome to somebody's knocked-about mistress. If he gives even a tinker's damn about you, he wouldn't--"

 

"Don't you dare presume to talk to me about what he would and would not do!" The vehemence of her tone made Dominic wince. "You know nothing about him. Even after reading the Red Diary, you still don't understand him. Or me! What's a whack upside the head compared to what he's done to me?" Evey advanced on Dominic without even realizing it, backing him against the damp brick wall like a lioness closing in on a cornered animal. "He's beaten me with ropes, burned me with cigarettes, scalded me with boiling hot water, suffocated me, starved me, terrified me until the only thing I could feel was physical pain! What's one blow compared to that?"

 

Even as she defended V, she felt the wrongness of her tirade. Not defending his actions, because she wasn't defending them--she understood V's character so implicitly, so ingrained was he in her bones that she was far beyond the need to define or defend V's actions. But what he had done to her in the simulated Room Five, he had done out of love. The bruise on her temple, though... was something else again.

 

Dominic stared at her in horror, his hands coming up to shield himself from her approaching onslaught. "Evey... why?" She narrowed her eyes, not comprehending. "Why do you stay with him?"

 

"You still don't get it, Dominic; I don't have a choice." She backed away, preparing to make her escape. "I am him."

 

***

 

Later that night, Dominic sat uneasily in council before the High Chancellor; beside him was Party Leader Abelard, and Dominic wondered, not for the first time, how just one man could occupy so much space. "Mr. Heyer," Ducane was saying, "if the surveillance cameras across the city can be so easily disabled, how can the Nose and the Finger be expected to counteract this madman? You have the resources at your disposal to boost the Eye's circle of influence by thirty-two percent. Why has nothing been done to implement these improvements?"

 

Conrad Heyer was a thin, withdrawn man, timorous by nature and made more so by the constant brow-beating of an overly ambitious wife. He had never fared well under the auspices of Adam Sutler, as being talked down to by a giant disapproving head had done little to put him at his ease. Heyer was one of the annoying but lucky men whose great good fortune it was to be so good at his job that the difficulty of replacing him far outweighed the relief of mind to be gained by getting rid of him.

 

However, Oliver Ducane seemed to have a talent for putting people at their ease, as Dominic was coming to learn. Just his willingness to appear in person before his staff was enough to give them an unheard of confidence, and his cold charm was very appealing after the pious rantings of the previous High Chancellor; in response to his query, Heyer had immediately produced a report and was busily explaining its highlights to his superior with an eagerness he would never have displayed before Sutler. "The funding is useless, sir, if we don't have the manpower. Many of my best technicians and operators have failed to report to work for several weeks now. A great number of them fear reprisals for taking part in the march on Parliament last month. And many are simply afraid to venture out of their normal routines. The, ah, ahem--" He cleared his throat apologetically. "The 'Revolutionary Ripper' has turned grown men into bedwetting ten-year-olds."

 

Ducane nodded, pursing his lips pensively over the report. "I see your difficultly. Mr. Etheridge," he addressed the head of the Ear. "Are you having similar problems?"

 

"Yes, sir," the aptly nicknamed 'Bunny' Etheridge replied in his wispy way.

 

"All right. Well, there's only one thing to be done for it, then. Inspector Stone--Mr. Abelard--Mr. Dascombe--as of this moment I am issuing a general state of alarm for the entire city of London. A red-coded curfew will be put into effect beginning tomorrow night. I want the patrols of Fingerman and beat police to be doubled--I know that's stretching your people thin, gentlemen, but our best defense now is prevention. Anyone caught breaking curfew is to be detained and escorted home immediately. Arrests are to be made only in cases where an officer interrupts a crime in progress." All three men scribbled notations onto their steno pads. "Mr. Dascombe, announce to the public this evening that I have issued a general amnesty to all participants in the November 5^th demonstration... with two obvious exceptions," he added with a small, dry smile.

 

Ducane turned to Dominic. "What has to Nose to report on this so-called 'Ripper,' Inspector Stone? Is he even a man?" 

 

Dominic flipped through his stack of paperwork from the profilers. "So far, that's pretty much the only thing we're certain of," he confirmed. "Forensics found muddy footprints at the last crime scene, puts the height of our boy at about two metres. No word yet on the shoe prints; there's no matching tread in our database. Could be hand-made or from a defunct manufacturer. None of the crimes appear to be revenge killings or sexually motivated--none of the victims have any enemies or even many acquaintances in common."

 

"What about the murder weapon?"

 

"The vics. were fairly well minced, sir. All Forensics can say at this point is that a knife was used, possibly several knives."

 

One of Abelard's half-closed eyelids flickered lazily; Ducane sat back in his chair. "Mr. Dascombe, I'll send you my statement by early this evening. Mr. Heyer, inform your people that they are to report to work post-haste on my orders or there will be hell to pay. That goes for any wayward employees in your department as well, Mr. Etheridge." The Chancellor nodded, and the three men rose to take their leave. "England prevails."

 

"England prevails," was the dutiful echo.

 

Ducane waited impatiently until they were gone, tapping his pen rhythmically against his desk blotter. "You said 'several knives,' Inspector Stone."

 

"I said 'possibly,' sir."

 

Abelard opened his eyes for the first time since the meeting began. "D'you think the Ripper is Codename V?"

 

"There's no evidence to support that assumption."

 

"I'm not asking about evidence, you wet ponce, I want t' know what you think." He wasn't drawling, exactly; it was more like what he was saying was of secondary importance to observing Dominic's reaction to the words.

 

Uncertainly, Dominic shot a glance at the Chancellor. "Yes, Inspector, we are asking for your professional opinion." His thin lips quirked. "Shocking, I know."

 

"I... no, I don't think it's Codename V."

 

"Why not?" prodded Abelard. "You say Finch thought he was dead, just because he saw a body in a mask."

 

"It's not his style," Dominic insisted in all seriousness. "There deaths make no sense. All apparently premeditated--surveillance disabled, the victims all alone and unprotected--he's stalking these people like prey but there's no other reason for them to have died. No reason to have targeted them. A few Fingermen, a copper, some petty thieves, muggers, a potential rapist--"

 

"Sounds like the work of a vigilante to me," Abelard pointed out, eyes closed once more, arms draped over the armrests of his chair, shoulders fairly bursting from his well-cut suit jacket and dark hair sleek as a cat's. A well-fed, lazy panther had much the same look.

 

"I don't agree," Dominic made himself say. "A vigilante wouldn't have cut these poor bastards up so angrily. He's very, very angry, our murderer. Even when he was blowing up buildings and putting all London in jeopardy, V never did anything in anger. Even Lewis Prothero--Bishop Lilliman--Dr. Surridge--he hated them, clearly, but it was so far gone a hate that he didn't waste much time on them. When V killed someone, it might have been personal, but it was beyond anger."

 

Abelard had opened his eyes again and was regarding Dominic with an assessing look. The Chancellor was busy writing. Finally, he tore a sheet from his pad. "Drop this off with my secretary on your way out, Rupert, and tell him to get it to Dascombe ASAP."

 

As the head of the Finger departed, Ducane slumped back in his chair and loosened his necktie tiredly, running a hand through his greying auburn hair. "Would you care for a drink before you leave, Dominic?"

 

"Um... yes, sir. Thanks."

 

"The glasses are on the sideboard over there," Ducane waved a long, thin hand, "bottom half of the bookcase." Obediently, Dominic fetched two tumblers from the shelf, lingering over the leather spines, their titles glinting in golf leaf: The Prince. The Crying of Lot 49. Narcissus and Goldmund. Slaughterhouse-Five. Areopagitica. The Black Dossier. Gargantua and Pantagruel. For Whom the Bells Toll. "Souvenirs of the Ministry, sir?" Dominic asked casually.

 

The Chancellor had unlocked a drawer in his desk and produced a bottle of very old and expensive single-malt Scotch. "Never drink alone," he counseled the younger man, pouring two large whiskies. "Bad for the reputation. No, those are examples of a job well done. I rebound each and every one of those volumes myself."

 

"Couldn't that have gotten you into trouble, sir?"

 

"At one time," Ducane admitted freely, "but it was my business to handle such materials."

 

Dominic fought it, but he simply had to know. "Why, sir? Why is it so important that all those things be preserved? Aren't they dangerous?"

 

Ducane drew his eyebrows together, his glass held securely just before his mouth between the long fingers of one hand, the other arm crossed before his torso, the elbow of one arm resting on the other. He was half-sitting on the edge of his desk; his jacket tossed carelessly over his chair. "I have always understood the need and advocated the use of censorship," he said last. "The minds of men are so easily corrupted. They will believe everything they read, anything they hear or are told. Give a man a book or a newspaper or a radio broadcast or a film, and he will be influenced by it in one way or another. Public opinion is too important a thing to be left to individual learning--it is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion--it is a right and a deadly serious prerogative. Only when the state's opinion is the people's opinion will those books cease to be dangerous."

 

It was compelling rhetoric, and the expression on the speaker's face left Dominic in no doubt that he believed what he was saying. But to his immense surprise, Dominic felt a smirk struggling to make itself known. "Okay, that's the Party line. What's your excuse?"

 

And Ducane sighed tiredly. "Touché," he conceded, swirling the whiskey in his tumbler thoughtfully. "When I was at university, I had an informal tutor, an older student reading classics. He was brilliant, could quote the classics and the moderns and the poets by the hour together, and what's more, he could make them comprehensible, and he was very decent to poor gingery Nolly Ducane. He longed for the knowledge of the ages and loathed Norsefire with his whole bohemian soul, especially the proposed Ministry of Objectionable Materials. He believes that what Sutler was trying to do was wrong, that everything and everyone in this world has value. Every book, every piece of art, every mode of worship, every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." He moved to sip his drink, then paused. "There are no new ideas, you know, Dominic, only endless permutations of words, a million billion ways of saying exactly the same thing. The ideas set forth in those books are dangerous beyond measure, just as their beauty is beyond question. Written once, they can never come to us in that shape again."

 

"So...Where's he now? Your old tutor?"

 

"He's dead, of course. I'd've thought that would be obvious. Brilliant men are dangerous, and cannot be preserved at any cost. Or so thought my predecessors."

 

"Sounds like..."

 

"Hmm?"

 

"Nothing, sir. Just sounds like the sort of chap that Seth Vickery would have wanted preserved. From what I've seen of the Tumbrels, he liked brilliant people."

 

"Yes... but only if he thought they would be useful in future. My old tutor was a loose cannon; besides, he'd made the incoming powers look like fools, and they couldn't have that." He tossed back his whisky philosophically, holding it in his mouth for a second or two before he swallowed. "But he taught me something very important, something Sutler never learned: not everyone shares my beliefs. But my beliefs do not require them to. I do not require the sympathy or the understanding on the people. Only their obedience."

 

Dominic met the Chancellor's eye squarely. A minute ago, it had been easy. But it was difficult now. Ducane's lips contorted into a smile. "Do I frighten you?"

 

"Yes, sir."

 

"Good." Ducane topped off Dominic's glass.

 

***

 

Maybe she was turning into a bit of a masochist. There was no real reason to keep going back to the Shadow Gallery. It had been days since V had even bothered to acknowledge her presence. But there were equipment and resources in the tunnels that she couldn't just give up.

 

She could not abandon V.

 

Whatever he was, whatever he had done... it would be the ultimate betrayal, and she couldn't do it.

 

What she needed was a sense of perspective, she reasoned, a different way to examine him. But she didn't have many angles from which to gauge V. She had only her own observations.

 

And his.

 

Evey didn't want to read his memoir again. Frankly, the idea made her want to throw up. But she had no other options, so she went into the book room and dug out V's manuscript from where she had hidden it. Carting the mess of papers back to the TV room, she popped in a DVD at random, to serve as background noise, and began to read.

 

She wanted to refresh her memory from the first, frenzied reading, that this time her mind would be clear and free of revulsion. She wanted an even greater understanding than what she already possessed of how V's mind operated. She wanted to help him. She wanted to comprehend what he had done to her, to help... well, at least to know. What she found was the same train of excruciatingly clear recollections that she had read last month, held together by a series of brief epigrams she had ignored at the time as inconsequential, lines so telling that Evey was hard-pressed to decide if they were quotations stolen from another source or in fact V's own words.

 

Nothing is not only nothing. It is also our prison.

 

When ideas fail, words come in very handy.

 

You think you are killing me. I think you are committing suicide.

 

Everything that emancipates the spirit without giving us control over ourselves is harmful.

 

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.

 

We all have our burdens to bears;/ We all have our masks/ That we must wear.

 

Am I a god? I see so clearly!

 

We all go a little mad sometimes...

 

The feather-light touch of leather fingers on her shoulder brought Evey shrieking back to her senses--her ears were suddenly assaulted by the sounds of screaming violins. Evey grimaced, reaching for the remote, and turned off the TV. "That's what I get for picking a movie at random," she scolded herself, getting up to cram Psycho back into its DVD case. She looked up, but V's frozen smile was grim; he was staring down at the worn, yellowed pages spilt across the couch cushions. "Why are you reading that again?" he asked quietly.

 

Evey tried to be flippant. "'Merely to the illustration of your character. I am trying to make it out."[1] But V refused to rise to her bait; he tore his eyes from the manuscript, one hand to his mask, the other clutching the carved back of the sofa. "I'm just trying to get further inside your head," she clarified, speaking slowly, as she might to a frightened animal, "so I can understand the way you're acting now. So I can help you."

 

"And what have you unearthed?" V asked. "Pray... tell."

 

She collected the scattered pages and began to arrange them in order once more. "Did you really come back for me?" she asked instead, not wistfully but pointedly, as though the matter were of paramount importance and all creation rested on his answer. "Or are you just using me as an excuse? For my part... I was fully prepared to go one without you, V." She laid a hand over his, fully aware of the raw strength pulsing beneath the leather. "You've got to take responsibility for who and what you are now. 'Truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.'" V jerked his head up, startled, and found himself looking into Evey's resolute brown eyes. "There's no place for you to turn back to."

 

"You are a conceited, arrogant, egotistical child."

 

"The essentials of patriotism.[2] But you're avoiding the question."

 

"Patriotism," V sneered. "The last refuge of scoundrels."[3]

 

"Insulting me isn't going to make me go away, V! And all your quotations mean to you is that they're just another mask for you to hide behind! God, you're so predictable--same man, same masks, same voice mouthing someone else's words. Time to stop hiding, V! Out of the shadows and out from behind me!"

 

"You." The word rolled off V's eloquent tongue like the vilest of curses. "I gave you freedom, Evey. I opened your eyes to the prison walls and the bars and the barbed wire and the green country beyond. I gave you the strength to escape and taught you to live without fear. How can you do this to me, Evey? I love you!" His eyes fairly blazed through the screened eyeholes of the mask. "And you cannot imagine the hatred I have for you."

 

His words stung her somewhere, but she refused to acknowledge them, and put the feeling away until she had time to deal with it. "Love, hate--just two sides of the same coin, V. Like it or not, eventually we all hurt the thing we love best." She could hear his breath, rapid and shallow through the fixed mouth. "You okay?"

 

"I'm hot," V retorted shortly, leaning one hand heavily on the back of the sofa.

 

"Hot?" she repeated.

 

"Yes, girl, hot! This mask is stifling; it's not meant to be worn continuously."

 

"Then why..." Evey trailed off. She no longer cared what was beneath the Guy Fawkes mask or even thought much about it these days, but he was fiercely protective of his appearance, and she would not risk angering him further by insulting him with the truth: that she had forgotten why he needed to wear a mask in the first place. "I'll go," she said instead. "I can just spend the night at my flat."

 

"Don't be such a martyr," V sneered, straightening abruptly. "If you can't stomach having my death on your conscience, I certainly can't have yours on mine." Internally, Evey winced; the sarcasm in his words didn't bear thinking about. "I'll go. It's freezing outside; the cold will clear my brain."

 

"Be careful."

 

"What?"

 

"Be careful," Evey said again, low and very serious. "There's that butcher about."

 

What V might think of the Revolutionary Ripper, he didn't say, only nodded curtly. "I'll be back before morning," he promised his keeper.

 

***

 

Removing his overcoat at home that night, Dominic checked his pockets as was his habit, and was surprised when his fingers encountered the flat, smooth surface of a DCD case, and a crumpled note written in a blocky hand he recognized as Luke Palmer's:

 

GET THIS TO SOMEONE

WHO CAN USE IT

 

He stared at the note and the case, blinking stupidly. How in the hell...? He hadn't even been to the Macbeth offices tonight! Briefly, Dominic considered plugging the disc into his office computer to see what was on it, or even his personal laptop, but dismissed the idea as suicidal and foolish. Palmer was a sophisticated and experienced hacker; the only course of action was to get this disc and whatever was on it to one who was equally accomplished.

 

Dominic did know such a person... by reputation. He dug out his phone and typed a cautious text message. The reply was a few minutes coming back: AT THE MEMORIAL.

 

***

 

"Well, ain't this romantic?" Dominic tried to joke, inching into the center of the circular courtyard to shelter himself from view under the statute of the children, their arms upraised in frozen play; he had goosebumps. Evey glanced briefly at him, but her attention was fixed upon a name in the surrounding wall: Robert Timothy Hammond, Jr. "We all called him Timmy," she commented, her tone light and conversational. "He wanted to be a footballer. What did you want to be, Dominic?"

 

He had to remind himself where his voice was, as he often did when she addressed him by name, so he gaped at her for a second or two before replying. "A cop."

 

"Just a cop? Never an astronaut or a vet or a painter?"

 

"Nope. Just a cop." The words he laid before her seemed to be inadequate now, paltry, compared to the possibilities he might have offered. But that wasn't right, wasn't it? Being a cop was still an honest, honorable thing, wasn't it? If he made it so? "What 'bout you? What did you wanna be when you grew up?"

 

She smiled sadly, fingers lingering over the engraved letters. "An actress." She turned and gave him her full attention. "What did you want to see me about?"

 

"This," and Dominic pulled out the DCD. "My hacker lad in Macbeth slipped me this, told me to get it to someone who could use it."

 

"What is it?"

 

"No idea. But seeing's how you chum managed to slither his way into the postal system just in time for Halloween, I figured he could give it a go."

 

"Probably could," she conceded reluctantly. "But I don't think he's up to it right now."

 

"No?"

 

"No. He's... indisposed."

 

Dominic snorted. "What's that mean?"

 

"He's ill."

 

"That why we haven't seen him at the meetings?"

 

"Partly, yeah."

 

"What 'bout you? You doing okay?"

 

"Well enough." The clouds shifted, throwing more light on the solitary pair. The bruise on her temple was coloring up richly, and in the grey, foggy twilight that always seemed to hang over the Memorial of Dead Children, it looked like a throbbing lesion; just the sight of it was enough to make the hardened cop go queasy. "Funny, isn't it?" Evey asked, reading his sickened expression. "I've been marked by both the men who love me." She tapped the three-cornered scar on her forehead.

 

The time for denial was long past. "I didn't know you then," Dominic returned softly.

 

"And you think you know me now? God, if you ever see what goes on inside my head... It's not safe in there."

 

"But your chum can go in 'n' out all right, is that it?"

 

"He put the demons there. He knows them."

 

"So what is he then, hmm? The devil? Christ, King Arthur? Superman?" The inspector's fists were clenched in his coat pockets as he scrabbled to keep hold of the tattering threads of his temper. "Throw me a bone 'ere--how's he holdin' you?"

 

She shook her head. Her voice was serene but her eyes were hard. "You wouldn't understand."

 

"Y'know, I am so fuckin' tired of getting that answer from you--from everyone! All I'm askin' for are some straight goddamn answers! What won't I understand--why won't I understand?" Dominic was angry, angrier than he had ever been in his life. "Why do you put up with him? Why d'you go on protecting someone who doesn't give a shit about you?"

 

Her hand flashed out and caught him by the collar before either of them realized she had moved. "Don't ever say that," she ground out. "You know nothing and understand less. Don't you dare insult him in front of me. You don't know him, Dominic."

 

Once again, his name on her lips sent chills down his spine, but this time they were not pleasant ones. "I don't want to know anybody who hurts the people he loves. It's wrong."

 

"'What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.'"[4]

 

"You can't really believe that. You can't look me in the eye and tell me it's right, that you deserve anything he's done to you."

 

The frustration burst from Evey's chest with a loud "Gah!", and she released Dominic with a jerk. "Done to me... done for me... what do any of us deserve... y'know, sometimes I think what the world would be like if any of us got what we really deserved. Then I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe." She turned to go.

 

Dominic massaged his throat and watched her through narrowed eyes. "Is that a quote from somewhere, too?" he asked suspiciously.

 

"If it's not, it should be."[5]

 

***

 

He had never considered himself a hunter, never styled himself as any sort of avenging angel, and tonight was no different, he roamed the city at will, disdaining the Eye and the Ear and walking proudly under the nose, giving the Finger a gleeful salute. How many would fall under his blades tonight? One? Two--five? He didn't know; did it really matter how many died, or who? He was at war with the world, and everything in it. Fingermen, police officers, prostitutes... men, women... he hadn't yet encountered a child on his prowls, but it would not stop him taking his pleasure if he did.

 

The first tonight was a hard-working prostitute and her client. His vorpal blades went snicker-snack! and then he moved on, lingering but not long over their cooling bodies, just long enough to savor the pleasure of discovery inflagrante delecto. Yes, he moved on quickly, not wanting to be caught in the afterglow of the act himself, and conscious of a gnawing at his mind, a little monster that would never leave him alone for long.

 

So he sought out a Fingerman alone on his rounds; the biting wee monster did not ply its teeth so sharply over the death of a Fingerman. He trailed the man into an alley, and his blood sang in time to the blades, sighing of sweet idiots and their unexpected music. But the gnawing and tearing in his brain only grew worse, chewing at his nervous system and shredding his composure into a million fibres. His gloved hand began to tremble, gently at first, and then with an increasing and uncontrollable palsy. The dagger fell from his hand and clattered to the pavement; he spun around blindly, his face a pale rictus, stumbling over the macerated corpse, tripping, falling, the metaphorical bloodbath becoming thuddingly real.

 

He dove deeper into the alley, away from the ripe scent of human meat. Tearing his mask off, he retched violently. When his stomach was empty he leaned a hand on the damp bricks and raised his voice in a howl to the stars.

 

Dear Christ, what was he doing?

 

***

 

V had been taking a lot of late-night walks over the past few months, and Evey was growing less concerned about him. At least he had found something to occupy part of him time besides his books and his music. And brooding. If anything, she was glad he felt well enough to leave the Gallery so regularly; he was irritable enough these days without having to add full-blown cabin fever to the mix.

 

She had even been considering asking V if he might be interested in a little 'PR work.' He was out and about in the city so frequently--and the Guy Fawkes mask was such a provider of anonymity now--that it was possible V could be of use to Dominic and the police in their hunt for the so-called "Revolutionary Ripper" that was plaguing the city. Dascombe had even had the balls to blame 'Codename V' for the murders; even V could not turn down a chance to clear his own name, Evey reasoned.

 

She was in the kitchen when V returned from his nightly maunderings. She was trying to think of something to make that would entice him to eat more--because what he did eat wouldn't keep a cat alive--when she noticed abruptly that he had not stopped into the alcove to greet her. But why should that bother her? He never did that any more. The persistent niggling feeling refused to be ignored. Mildly alarmed, she went in search of him.

 

A sense of sickly déjà vu crept down her spine when she was able to find him by following a trail of dark wet drops on the rich carpet. Oh God, not again...! She found him in his makeup room, fully cloaked, standing before his mirror, shoulders quivering in the dim. "V?" she asked carefully, unsure if she should approach him. "Are you hurt?"

 

"Deeply," he replied, his low voice halfway between a shudder and a sob.

 

Reaching out, Evey felt for the dimmer switch on the wall and turned up the light.

 

The blood drops stopped in the middle of the floor, in the great wet heap of leather and steel of V's knife holster, oozing like a split pomegranate, and Evey suspected with a growing iciness that the trembling of V's body came from no injury. "V," she said again, very quietly, "what have you been about?"

 

She could hear his breath sticking behind his mask. "V. Turn around." He did not move. Evey stepped over the sodden mess, took V by the shoulders and bodily turned him to face her. She unclasped his cloak and let it fall to the floor, taking the lapels of his jacket in her fists and forcing him to tip his mask downward. "Tell me."

 

"Evey..."

 

"You've killed someone."

 

"Yes."

 

"Many someones."

 

"Yes."

 

"Fingermen?"

 

"Some."

 

"Only some?"

 

The interrogation was unmistakable, brutal and demeaning--V had relinquished all control--but it steadied him enough to be able to at least speak. "For weeks, Evey, as I roamed London... there have been deaths."

 

She narrowed her eyes. "The 'Revolutionary Ripper.' Jesus Christ."

 

"If you leave me now--and Evey, I won't blame you an ounce--please tell me. Don't let me wake to find myself alone."

 

He was so broken, so pathetic, that it made Evey furious. After all he'd done to her--after all he'd put her thought--he was reduced to begging? "You stupid old man," she growled. "What the fuck are you on about? Where in hell do you think I'm going?" She wanted to smack him in his bloody grinning masked mouth, but her hands were clenched too tightly into his clothing to let go. "You're not getting rid of me that easily. I'm not leaving. Hell, I thought you were dead and I didn't leave. I'm not giving up on you, V, and if you think that by committing murder you can send me away, you're more wrong in the head than even I thought." She let go of him with a glare of pure disgust. "Get in the shower. You're filthy. And V? The next time you tell me it's not your revolution anymore, I swear to God, I'll laughing in your grinning face, because you're more of a danger to England outside the revolution than in it."

 

V stumbled blindly away. Evey sank into the makeup chair, leaning her forehead against the heels of her palms.

 

My God, she thought vaguely. I've finally done it. I've broken him.

 

End Part Four

 

NEXT CHAPTER—PART FIVE: VENDICATE