MANTEAU
Created by Arlen M. Todd
Characters
Lina Mayen
Solange (Lina’s
secretary & master of her disguises)
Osher (bookstore owner)
Anatole Janvier (mob
boss, gang des Pauses Sud)
Pittard brothers
(Janvier’s bodyguards)
“Sturmbahnfuhrer” Wiegand
(German leader)
Fantome (Boris Gunn)
Noye (stage magician
known as Count Mirabeau)
Ciara
Paul
Lancer
She
is in Paris after the last man responsible for her sister’s death, Lina Mayen
(not her true name) put the murderer on hold when another case surfaces. After
all, she all ready knows who her sister’s killer is, so he can wait.
Manteau:
She strapped on her silk black mask. The mask covered her face like a bandana,
allowing her hair to tumble free to her shoulders. It was decorated with a
silver-threaded Libra or balance scale symbol. The scale’s support ran the
length of her nose; its beam defined her brow line; and its weighing pans
consisted of the eyeholes. She regarded this persona, Manteau, the Cloud-Sign
Mask, as her truest self. The mob boss Lena Mayen was a ruse adopted only as an
efficient means to discover the criminal deserving Manteau’s vengeance and,
except around her father, she’s allowed her birth name to fade with disuse. The
anonymity of the mask both protected her private life (such as it was), and
afforded her the freedom to think and act as justice demanded.
Her
only way into the museum was up – four stories of sheer brick. Iron bars
secured all of the windows below the top floor. The buildings façade of
acid-resistant silica offered no easy handholds. The mortar between bricks
would have to do. She affixed a collapsible sword to her thigh-strap, attached
a holstered gas gun to her belt, then donned a pair of clawed gloves. Her head
was still bleary from last night’s cognac. She cursed herself for not drinking
red wine cut with water and again for forgetting her cloak, which, when
activated by her gauntlets, stiffened into glider wings. The building loomed
like an unmarked gravestone. She found her first crevice, took a troubled
breath, and pulled her combat boots from the ground.
She
drives a Duesenberg J Roadster.
Manteau
runs the Marseille mob, Unione Carse as a divergent to her role as a masked
detective vigilante in the 1930’s France. She especially looks for cases that
involve the supernatural.
Although it’s mentioned that she has many aides, and a few
are named, Solange works as her close associate and secretary. She also works
wonders with disguises for Lina Mayen when she doesn’t want to be seen as Manteau.
There’s only been one novel so far that I know of, and there
was a mix up in the name. Sometimes she is called Manteau, and sometimes
Monteau. Manteau appeared more often, so I went with that name for our heroine.
1: “The Q For Damnation”
(Imperiad Entertainment 2016) Published in NIGHTSCAPE Double Feature #1 The
second novel in the issue was “The Thousand-Eyed Fear” by Derrick Ferguson
& David W. Edwards (both stories slightly connected, but does not feature
Manteau in both).
