Manteau

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).