The Clockwork Conundrum : A Beatrix Belladonna Tale

The last memories of Penny Dreadful were a silver bullet taken to the breast. Tumbling down the stairs. Now the automaton lay at the stair's foot in a crumpled heap, oozing blue blood from an open wound that exposed gears and cogs, some of them wrecked as they creaked to a stop. She trembled and attempted to rise, only for her artificial muscles to fail her.

"F-father..." She thought of Professor Kilroy, still determined to avenge him with her last artificial breath. "Someone...help me...whatever it takes, I'll..."

Glazed eyes caught a movement from the corner of her eye. Different from the manor walls around her, that began to shift. Instead, some creature scuttled towards her position. As it neared in a scrape of metal, her eyes focused on her spider-like, mechanical pet.

"You're...alive? I thought I'd lost you in the sewers!" She giggled deliriously when it started to crawl across her, its cool metal traced across her skin and over her dress.

On closer inspection, she noticed the machine wasn't entirely what she remembered. Organic matter from the mansion had wrapped itself like a fleshy web around the automaton, helped animated this abomination of flesh-and-steel.

She moaned and arced her bosom whenher 'pet' forced its way into her open chest cavity, united with the clockwork killer as she lazily rose to her feet, reborn.

"Yes~...much better!" She felt its warmth and ran her hands across her chest. She could sense the life within these mansion walls, as whatever Dhullex summoned from the Necronomicon called to her, directed her. She reclaimed her umbrella, marched upstairs in a click of heels.

*****

The moment the door was thrown open, all hell would break loose. But Beatrix, who was trapped inside with Adagio, Esmeralda, and Camellia, knew they were doomed anyhow if they stayed here, so there was no choice but to attempt this risky plan.

She'd tried her usual first resort when a situation appeared hopeless, a portal out of whatever crazy world she found herself in, then hesitated at the realization Dhullex used the Necronomicon to open his own to some eldritch dimension. Instinct told her it could potentially cause this dimension's collapse, and take all of them with it!

"Get ready," reminded Camellia.

"Y-yeah," replied Beatrix. "Sadly, I think Dhullex will see through my illusions..."

"Don't think they'll work too well on the maids either," said Esmeralda, who twirled a silver pistol in her hand. "That's where we come in! We'll clear a path, then-"

"Leave it to me," said Adagio, her face furrowed in determination to save her sisters. The door was kicked open by Esmeralda, and everyone rushed into action at once.

Black balls of fire erupted from Camellia's palms and immolated the nearest marionette maids that attempted to carve their way into the room. The masked sorceress preferred not to apply the dark arts in such a vulgar manner, especially since their use would eventually exhaust her, but under the circumstances she pushed her abilities to the limits.

To support her and make certain she didn't drain herself too early, Esmeralda unleashed a euphoric battle cry, her whip snapped around a maid's ankle to yank her down and towards her. With a flick of her wrist she unsheathed her sword and beheaded the doll.

Beatrix called upon her own spells here, reminded how much weaker she felt in this dimension as the trio of elements she summoned, fire, ice, and lightning, managed to scorch, freeze, and fry a trio of automatons, respectively. Usually, she could easily handle an entire mob at once! Yet she could also feel herself starting to tire at an unprecedented rate.

"Oh my! Guess we took a little too much blood," mused Esmeralda, another doll cleaved apart before its clockwork hands could punch into their flesh and rip them apart.

Aided by the pair of casters, Esmeralda cut a swath down the hallway...only to feel the floor ripple underneath them. "Aha, like a haunted house! And we're the planned victims!"

A dark silhouette appeared at the corridor's end, the tome in the caped man's hand. "Food to feed the beast," announced Dhullex Faustus. He strained his will to control and manipulate the eldritch abomination he summoned into this dimension, attempted to finalize the spell that would forever bind the monstrosity into the manor that would become its prison.

The patriarch sire resumed his chants...only to pause as Adagio started to approach, past her allies while their weapons and spells kept the clockwork marionettes distracted. "I'm the one you want," she said, as she started to undo the laces around the back of her dress. "You've already taken my sisters! Drink from me, and that once atrophied body will fully heal..."

Despite himself, his concentration wavered when Adagio allowed her dress to spill behind her when she strode forward, her complete nakedness revealed to his eyes. A reminder of when he forced Esmeralda and Camellia to become his brides, to ease his loneliness.

She moved closer, past the floorboards that rippled like flesh, in a bounce and sway of heavy breasts, her wide nipples perky in the draft. Her hips and buttocks swished, her bare snatch enveloped by a reddish sheen cast by the blood red interior as she forced a sultry smile.

She didn't care anymore if she died...simply that Aria and Sonata were avenged.

"Stay back," warned Dhullex as she crossed over, mere feet away.

"Why?" She innocently clasped her hands behind her and arched her back to make her breasts appear as full and bountiful as possible. "It's obvious I please your eyes..."

While the vampire backed up, tome still in hand as he found himself unable to tear his eyes away from the sultry harlot he drank in, Beatrix left the battle in Esmeralda's and Camellia's capable hands as she slipped towards the head vampire. She would only have one shot...!

By now Adagio was practically in his face. "You want me," she assured him in her sultriest, musical voice, her hands running over her bare tits, and over her shapely hips.

Dhullex bit into his lower lip in an attempt to resist, tried to focus on the pain and hate that had carried him past the point where any mortal would have expired...yet after so much time spent in the basement, he felt famished, even after he drank Sonata and Aria dry.

Instinct screamed at him to feed! To fulfill the addiction all vampires shared! And as the first and most powerful of his line, his needs surpassed those of even his hedonistic brides...!

Before he could rethink insanity born of bloodlust, he'd dropped the Necronomicon and was upon Adagio. Wrapped in his powerful arms, his sank his fangs into a tit which wobbled under his enclosed lips. She moaned out her ecstasy, paralyzed as he claimed her.

While he suckled away at the plush tit, a trickle of blood and saliva left to dribble from the twin wounds down the slope of the harlot's titty, Beatrix slipped behind them and started to draw a circle in the air. He'd been forced to stop mid-summon, as the mansion interior flickered between fleshy walls and the usual structure she was used to on her arrival.

By the time Dhullex realized what she was up to and dropped a partially drained Adagio, a few wrinkles visible on the harlot's face as she'd aged a couple decades, the circle Beatrix drew was closed and a bluiosh-white portal shimmered to life before the head vampire.

He scooped up the Necronomicon, blood on lips twisted in malice, ready to continue his chant as he was unaware that two portals in close proximity could tear the walls of reality apart and doom them all. Worse, she saw in his eyes such spite he wouldn't care!

However, the start of his chants were broken when a slimy tendril whipped out from a wall and struck him. He barely held onto the book and spit when he called, "You fools! I've lost control over the beast I summoned! It won't stop until it's devoured us all!"

Black flames from his fist torched a couple of the tendrils closest to him, merely to be replaced by a dozen more, which slammed into his chest. He screamed, the Necronomicon still clutched in his hand, as it tumbled with him into the opened portal.

The rift closed behind Dhullex as the eldritch abomination, half-summoned and fused into this dimension, continued to quake the walls and floors as more tentacles lashed out.

Beatrix yelled, "At least that's one problem dealt with...!" She stumbled over to Adagio's side, the naked harlot draped on her side across the floor as she wheezed. "Just hold on!"

Adagio weakly asked, "Can this...monster be sent back...?"

"Unfortunately no," said Camellia, she and her partner surrounded by dozens of marionettes that they had finished off, the broken dolls scattered across the hallway. "But I may be able to finish the seal and imprison it in the manor. It's a complicated spell-"

Esmeralda drew her head close and kissed her lips with a wet smack. "You can do it, love!"

Camellia nodded once, her crimson eyes narrowed in determination. "There is another catch," she lamented, as Beatrix raised a barrier to block the tendrils that blindly struck around them, the creature blind as it searched for prey. "It requires a sacrifice."

Adagio struggled to her knees and caressed her lined face. "Let...me."

Beatrix shook her head. "No way! Can't we feed it one of these marionettes...?"

"Unacceptable, I fear. The beast needs to extinguish one's life force. Close to flesh these maids are, I know it won't fool this eldritch abomination," explained Camellia.

Beatrix's transparent horn flared its aura as she asked, "Then how about we run?"

Esmeralda smiled. "Cut our losses? You think this creature will stop here? No doubt it will spread and slake itself on the whole city! But if you don't mind a sizable body count..."

"Okay, okay!" Beatrix wasn't ready to sacrifice her life, not when Abadonna was out there somewhere and still needed her...but neither did she want anyone to die in her place!

Besides, it took all she had to maintain this shield...she doubted it would hold up on the run! And the portal she opened was far too small to capture a monster of this size!

Rather than debate it further, Camellia started to resume the chant from where Dhullex left off. Without the Necronomicon she would have to improvise the rest of the complicated spell, and hoped her knowledge of the black arts would fill in any holes in the spell.

Beatrix asked, "Uh, how does this sacrifice work? We don't have to...?"

"Over there." Esmeralda nodded at a mouth filled with sharp teeth that manifested on a sticky wall. "Just step inside and let that monster mash your bones and blood!"

Adagio started to crawl on all fours towards the monstrous maw, curious how old she appeared? In her forties? Still beautiful, despite the ravages of time. Her sisters would be proud of her. She would take care of them, like she promised, assured by her companions that they would do whatever it took to restore their mummified flesh to normal...

*****

"I am your eyes and ears! I hunt for you!" Penny Dreadful whistled, as she lazily finished her ascent of the stairs, down the hallway where her ears picked up the sounds of battle. Dhullex Faustus, hate-filled alchemist-turned-vampire, had lost control of the eldritch abomination, which now communicated its alien voice into her skull by way of her 'pet' as it fused within her breast. She burned with newfound power, determined to butcher everyone responsible for father's death! Esmeralda! Camellia! Beatrix! None of them would be spared...!

The vampire couple had named this mansion the 'Womb of Conception'. A name that somehow seemed suitable to her ears now, as an eldritch beast was born into this universe.

At this point the last doll maid had fallen, but her enemies were distracted, as Beatrix's spell kept the blinded tendrils at bay, the witch's transparent unicorn horn lit up.

Camellia's eyes were closed and her pale hands were raised, locked in a series of chants. Esmeralda at her side, as her silver sword routinely cut down tendrils that neared them.

She watched Adagio crawl naked on all fours across the floor, Penny's head tilted to the side in curiosity, but what it all meant didn't matter to her. A metallic swish sounded as the blade extended from the tip of her umbrella, Beatrix's back turned to the killer.

Her whistling stopped. She whispered, "Naughty, naughty..." The bio-mechanical fusion had made her stronger. Faster. She rushed in, umbrella raised to strike the death blow...