guards—showed up for work that
morning as usual, but instead of the customary church-like quiet,
they
found Redd’s soldiers roaming about amidst shattered glass, broken statues, smashed furnishings, and decimated art. The sight of Redd’s horde was enough to make even the most courageous ticket taker go whey-faced and run, but when Redd and The Cat themselves appeared, attracted by the sound of troops terrorizing fresh victims, the more fragile among them took one look at the queen’s ghastly visage and the assassin’s glinting claws and fainted where they cowered. A fleet of bobbies arrived. But sighting the motley trespassers, none of the officers charged forth with the bravery they might have displayed against a more recognizable enemy.
“Who are these foolish-looking men with their round hats?” Redd smirked. “They’ve nothing but clubs for weapons.”
To exercise her imagination more than anything else, she flicked her fingers at them. Thimp, thimp thimp thimp! The bobbies felt the sting of scatter shot through their uniforms, against their flesh; not the usual scatter shot of steel or metal balls, but pennies. Paper money began to rain down from the ceiling. The bobbies stuffed their pockets as fast as they could and ran from the palace. The authorities were powerless; Redd and her followers would not be dislodged from their new abode. Men from the press soon ventured to Sydenham Hill, risking their lives to interview the woman who could conjure storms of money at will.
“Yes, let them inform the pathetic public that Redd Heart has come,” Her Imperial Viciousness said when Vollrath explained what they wanted. “I have allowed myself to wallow in anonymity long enough.” Whenever a new article was printed in the newspapers, Redd took her pet assassin out for a stroll, amusing herself with the chaos she and The Cat caused—Londoners fleeing in every direction at the sight of them.
She organized her troops along conventional hierarchical lines, the least talented divided into companies of fifty-two, each company captained by a recruit with greater imaginative gifts than those beneath her. The captains reported to battalion commanders more gifted than they. Each commander had five captains reporting to her while they themselves reported to the most gifted recruits, those who reported directly to Redd. Among this last, powerful rank was Baroness Dvonna, who had a talent for draining imagination from young and inexperienced Earth children not yet in full control of their abilities, leaving them forever lethargic, withered, glum. How this talent might fare against Wonderlanders was unclear, but Redd enjoyed the fact that the woman had littered Earth with a generation of sourpuss children. Plus, the baroness had a great many of these children under her control and, if nothing else, they could be thrown on the front line against Alyss’ forces. Redd’s top military rank also included Alistaire Poole, a self-taught surgeon-cum-undertaker with a penchant for performing autopsies on people not in the least dead. His weapons of choice were scalpel and bone saw. There was Siren Hecht, an ex-Wonderlander whose imaginative gift lay in her ability to imagine her voice into such shrill, piercing registers that bank managers would fall to the ground, writhing with pain, while she helped herself to their vaults. And rounding out Redd’s crew of direct reports: the Marquis and Marquise X from the Basque region of Spain who, unfortunately for the local goatherds, were adept in hypnosis and occult spells; Mr. Van de Skülle, a slave trader originally from the Dutch West Indies who’d made a menace of himself during America’s civil war and was particularly skilled with a spike-tipped whip; and, of course, Sacrenoir. Whereas this crowd of elite Black Imaginationists had been wooed into Redd’s service by Vollrath, those who made up the lower ranks—foot soldiers, grunts—traveled from all over the world for an opportunity to line up before Her Imperial Viciousness, subjecting themselves to her inspection and
found Redd’s soldiers roaming about amidst shattered glass, broken statues, smashed furnishings, and decimated art. The sight of Redd’s horde was enough to make even the most courageous ticket taker go whey-faced and run, but when Redd and The Cat themselves appeared, attracted by the sound of troops terrorizing fresh victims, the more fragile among them took one look at the queen’s ghastly visage and the assassin’s glinting claws and fainted where they cowered. A fleet of bobbies arrived. But sighting the motley trespassers, none of the officers charged forth with the bravery they might have displayed against a more recognizable enemy.
“Who are these foolish-looking men with their round hats?” Redd smirked. “They’ve nothing but clubs for weapons.”
To exercise her imagination more than anything else, she flicked her fingers at them. Thimp, thimp thimp thimp! The bobbies felt the sting of scatter shot through their uniforms, against their flesh; not the usual scatter shot of steel or metal balls, but pennies. Paper money began to rain down from the ceiling. The bobbies stuffed their pockets as fast as they could and ran from the palace. The authorities were powerless; Redd and her followers would not be dislodged from their new abode. Men from the press soon ventured to Sydenham Hill, risking their lives to interview the woman who could conjure storms of money at will.
“Yes, let them inform the pathetic public that Redd Heart has come,” Her Imperial Viciousness said when Vollrath explained what they wanted. “I have allowed myself to wallow in anonymity long enough.” Whenever a new article was printed in the newspapers, Redd took her pet assassin out for a stroll, amusing herself with the chaos she and The Cat caused—Londoners fleeing in every direction at the sight of them.
She organized her troops along conventional hierarchical lines, the least talented divided into companies of fifty-two, each company captained by a recruit with greater imaginative gifts than those beneath her. The captains reported to battalion commanders more gifted than they. Each commander had five captains reporting to her while they themselves reported to the most gifted recruits, those who reported directly to Redd. Among this last, powerful rank was Baroness Dvonna, who had a talent for draining imagination from young and inexperienced Earth children not yet in full control of their abilities, leaving them forever lethargic, withered, glum. How this talent might fare against Wonderlanders was unclear, but Redd enjoyed the fact that the woman had littered Earth with a generation of sourpuss children. Plus, the baroness had a great many of these children under her control and, if nothing else, they could be thrown on the front line against Alyss’ forces. Redd’s top military rank also included Alistaire Poole, a self-taught surgeon-cum-undertaker with a penchant for performing autopsies on people not in the least dead. His weapons of choice were scalpel and bone saw. There was Siren Hecht, an ex-Wonderlander whose imaginative gift lay in her ability to imagine her voice into such shrill, piercing registers that bank managers would fall to the ground, writhing with pain, while she helped herself to their vaults. And rounding out Redd’s crew of direct reports: the Marquis and Marquise X from the Basque region of Spain who, unfortunately for the local goatherds, were adept in hypnosis and occult spells; Mr. Van de Skülle, a slave trader originally from the Dutch West Indies who’d made a menace of himself during America’s civil war and was particularly skilled with a spike-tipped whip; and, of course, Sacrenoir. Whereas this crowd of elite Black Imaginationists had been wooed into Redd’s service by Vollrath, those who made up the lower ranks—foot soldiers, grunts—traveled from all over the world for an opportunity to line up before Her Imperial Viciousness, subjecting themselves to her inspection and