The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2016 Edition

by Paula Guran

  Kit shot him a grin, dodged a kick from Airedale, who muttered “mincing little bastard” yet again, and made a conscious effort to walk in a more manly way, legs apart as if large balls might be impeding his stride. She kept it up until she turned the corner into Brick Lane, finding the gait made her hip joints grind uncomfortably, and the rolled-up pair of socks in the front of her trousers had drifted uncomfortably to the left. Kit adjusted her “crotch,” thinking that only as a man could she get away with such a thing in public.

  A whistle, high and wolfish, caught her attention.

  The previously empty street now contained a woman, small with dark brown hair, who stood at the mouth of an alley. She wore a forest-green dress, a black short jacket over the top and a clean white apron, but there was no doubt in Kit’s mind what profession the woman pursued. Her skin was fair, she wore no hat, but her cheeks were rouged like a doll’s, her lips painted redder than red; she stood with one hip pushed out in offering, and her gaze said “come hither” as she fluttered her lashes. She lifted a thin, graceful hand and gestured in a queenly fashion for Kit to approach.

  “What are doing, you little turd? Get a move on!” Airedale growled from behind Kit and slapped a meaty hand down on her shoulder. Startled she twisted away, fish-fast, and broke into a sprint.

  “Better run, you little faggot,” bellowed Airedale, laughing unpleasantly.

  Kit kept moving. When she drew level with the spot where the woman had been, it was empty, but somewhere back in the shadowy depths of the alley, she seemed to sense movement and the weight of a gaze still upon her.

  IV

  William Nichols was harder to find than Edward Stanley, but easier to talk to, Kit discovered. Stanley, at his job, was loath to take time to speak with Kit. She didn’t think it was guilt—then again she couldn’t be sure—but rather a wish to not be involved. He’d spent time with Annie, yes, on occasion; they’d shared lodgings now and then, yes. But he’d not seen her in a good six months and he’d met a girl, good and kind and sweet—and very religious. He was bettering himself, didn’t Kit see, and he could not, would not, be associated with the likes of depraved women such as Annie Chapman. He was sorry for what happened to her, but she’d brought it upon herself by the very life she lived.

  Kit found herself disliking the newly clean-living Mr. Stanley, his righteousness sticking in her throat like a chicken bone. And he had an alibi, even if she’d have preferred he didn’t, just for the sheer pleasure of running him in.

  “Ah, poor Polly,” said William Nichols, shaking his head. Kit found him in the Bricklayers Arms, already well soused. A printer’s machinist, he’d finished for the day; his employer was sitting beside him, also rather drunk. When Kit appeared that man made excuses to leave, mentioning a wife with a rolling pin and a finely tuned temper, who was expecting him home sooner rather than later. She took the seat the printer had so recently occupied, careful to sit with her legs apart and arms crossed over her chest—Airedale’s comments had made her consider if she’d gotten sloppy about maintaining her masculine disguise. Perhaps, thought Kit wryly, it was time to adopt all the great hallmarks of male behavior: spitting in the street, burping after a meal, and farting with enthusiasm in small airless rooms.

  “Poor Polly, poor Mary Anne,” sighed Nichols. Kit pondered how whores seemed not to settle on one single name, yet created new personas for themselves—a nom de mattress.

  “When did you last see her, Mr. Nichols?”

  “Not for a few months. You know we’re separated,” he said, his round face sad as he sipped at his gin. Kit knew—one of the woman she’d spoken to at the time of Mary Anne/Polly’s death—Nelly Holland, the tart who shared a room with her—had told how William had an affair with the nurse who’d delivered their last child, then left. He’d been forced to pay Polly maintenance, though, until it came to light she’d been on the game—her illicit earnings meant her erstwhile husband was freed from his fiscal burden.

  Holland said Polly claimed they still knew each other as man and wife every so often, but Nelly’d not seen evidence of it. It was possible, Kit supposed; William Nichols appeared genuinely fond of his deceased spouse, and he didn’t seem like a man with an axe to grind. To her surprise he added, “My fault entirely. I should not have laid my hat where it did not belong. Only poor Polly was so tired after that last babe and a man needs some attention. I should have been patient though.”

  Kit wondered if all the men of Whitechapel were coming down with the affliction of self-improvement and thought the world might not survive were it to continue unabated.

  “Quite,” she said. “Did she know Annie Chapman?”

  He nodded sagely.

  “They all know each other, don’t they? Women?” he said as if the sex was some kind of tribe with an in-built knowledge of all its members, then he clarified, “The tarts. They know each other; if they’re not fighting over territory and clients, they’re drinking together somewhere. If they’re not arguing over who stole whose best petticoat, they’re sharing warnings about the bad’uns, those that won’t pay what they say they will, that hurt the girls instead of simply doing their normal business.”

  “Were they friends?” she asked. “I mean, did they know each other well?”

  He shrugged. “Knew each other well enough to have a drink at the Ten Bells, I suppose.” His eyes sparkled. “Here, why are you asking? Have you found the bastard who cut my Polly?”

  She shook her head and watched his interest snuff out. “No, Mr. Nichols, I’m sorry. I’m just trying to find out if Annie and Polly had any connections that might lead me somewhere useful.”

  “Can’t help you, lad, anymore than I’ve said, I’m sorry.” He looked so downcast she was tempted to reach over and pat his hand, but knew it would be misinterpreted and turn out badly for her no matter what. So, Kit nodded, and stood, wished him good evening and made her way through the cramped, smoky rooms of the Bricklayers Arms and out into the evening, glad for the thickness of her tunic against the coming chill.

  Her footsteps sounded cold on the cobbles and carriages clattered past on their way to better places. The lights had come on, yellow beacons flickering weakly in the early hints of a night mist—of course, the alleys and courts, the side streets and lacunae between buildings did not warrant electrical illumination; darkness needed a place to thrive. After she’d moved from the door of the pub and was partway down well-lit Commercial Street, she heard a crash and a crunch as of someone dropping something and standing on something else, just inside an alleyway.

  “You do make a lovely boy,” said a voice from the pitchy shades, rolling effortlessly between two accents and, even though it was female, it sent a shiver through Kit. She frowned and concentrated on identifying the distinct tones as she scanned the shadows. “But I’ll wager you’ve not got what it takes.”

  This last was said with a laugh and the prostitute Kit had seen on her return from the mortuary stepped out of the gloom. Irish, thought Kit, and Welsh; a smooth mix of rhythmic lilts, musical cadences and strange glottal stops. The woman moved closer and her hand snaked out, grabbing at Kit’s groin, closing briefly around the rolled socks, and letting go with a laugh. The movement was so rapid, so unexpected, that she had no time to react, but stood, mouth agape, horrified. The woman turned her back, cast a look over her shoulder and said, “Will you walk with me, lad?”

  Kit swallowed, not daring to speak, thinking only of getting this unwanted companion away from a place where they might be overheard. They fell into step and made a dignified progress towards Hawksmoor’s Christ Church and its small graveyard, an island of darkness lapping against Commercial Street. They remained silent for the first minute or three, the woman nodding to other whores waiting for company. They nodded back and Kit wondered if William Nichols had been more right than he’d known when he suggested these sisters of the streets all knew each other.

  “How did you know?” asked Kit quietly when they reached the metal s
pikes of the churchyard fence.

  “Some things I just do. You’re doing a fine job, though, of keeping those coppers fooled. They don’t take notice, for all they’re investigators. They take things at face value, don’t you find?” She too spoke quietly, and Kit appreciated that she seemed committed to keeping Kit’s secret, at least for the moment.

  “What do you want? I have no money to spare,” she said, thinking she simply couldn’t afford to be blackmailed.

  “I may be a whore, but I’m not a thief, thank you very much,” said the woman, affronted dignity limning her tone.

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry.”

  “Ah, don’t be. Of course I’m a thief, we all are. I just wanted to see if you had any manners.” She laughed shrilly; she was older than Kit, maybe twenty-five, and she was very pretty although, Kit observed, it wouldn’t be long before the harshness of her way of life started to show itself on her face. “The other girls always say you’re a polite young man, that you don’t talk down to them, that you listen. Oh, don’t worry, they don’t know what I know and if they did, they wouldn’t tell—the streets are better with you here and all. Don’t want your money, Kit Caswell, but I wanted to talk to you about Polly and Annie.”

  “Did you know them?”

  “Of course, we are of a kind,” replied the woman in melodic timbre.

  “Who are you?” asked Kit belatedly.

  “Mary Jane Kelly,” she said and nodded towards a seat inside the churchyard. “Marie Jeanette, if you prefer. Or Fair Emma or Ginger or Black Mary, if nothing else takes your fancy?”

  “More names than you can shake a stick at,” observed Kit and Mary Jane fixed her with a look.

  “Wouldn’t you? If you did what we do, wouldn’t you hide your identity, try to separate yourself any way you could from what you do?” She sat on the bench, first wiping at it in a lady-like fashion with a gloved hand. “Wouldn’t you take an alias and keep your real name a secret, just like the gypsies do? You—you keep your true self hidden, so you should understand.”

  Kit hadn’t thought of it like that, but it made all the sense in the world. “I see it, yes. I’m sorry for being rude. What do you have to tell me, Miss Kelly? About the women who’ve been carved?”

  “They’ve not been killed because they’re whores, Kit Caswell, that’s just a convenience makes them easier to find, to hunt out.”

  “Then why? What can they possibly have that a killer would take from them?”

  “You know what he took from Annie and so do I—oh, PC Wright’s a love when you get him in the mood,” she sniggered smugly. “Took the very core of her, didn’t he? From Polly, he took the voice-box.”

  No one else knew about that, Kit thought. “What could he do with body parts? You’re not saying they’re getting burked? What he’s taking is hardly fit for commerce with the Resurrectionists and their like.”

  “Sweet Jesu, thought you were smarter than those with a weight between the legs, pulling their brains downwards!” Kelly shook her head. “No, he takes the things he needs, little pieces of them that the soul can cling to. He’s taken two, he wants five, like the points of a pentacle.”

  “What?” Kit blinked.

  “He can’t carry away bodies, not the state they’re in and he doesn’t need all of them for his purposes. He just needs a little thing, a souvenir, a flesh poppet for the soul to recognize, to hang on to until he gets it to wherever he’s taking them.” She grasped Kit’s cold hands in her own, and Kit could feel the heat of her coming through the thin-worn gloves. “He’s taking them because they’re witches. He’s taking them for their power.”

  Kit didn’t know which thought to follow first, so she leapt on the most obvious. “You say he—do you know who it is? For the love of God, don’t tell me you know and haven’t told!”

  “Don’t be a fool, Kit Caswell, if I’d knew who it was I’d have been into Leman Street so fast you’d not have seen me for the dust I kicked up.” She shook her head. “I don’t know who it is. I only know that when Polly and Annie died, I felt them go, and I wouldn’t have felt that if their lives and power weren’t taken from them so fiercely—with such terrible violence and with sorcery in the mix. Power travels on the air, Kit Caswell, in ways you can’t understand, you can’t feel—most folk can’t feel. But those of us with it, we know when it shifts and shivers, we sense its passing.”

  “If you’re so powerful, why are you all earning a living on your back?” Kit asked, eyebrows raised. “If you’re witches, why not magic yourselves wealth and position or even just a tidy cottage and a comfortable living, a good husband to keep you?”

  “Did I say we were powerful?” sneered Mary Jane. “Did I say we could conjure storms, fly, make great houses out of air and spit? Having magic doesn’t mean you’re almighty. There are women in Mayfair, Russell Square, in bloody Buckingham Palace, who are sisters to my kind; they can summon the wind and the lightning, but they are potent because they were born to it, they were born to position. But the power we have isn’t of the same degree and we can’t conjure a decent life out of straw and rags and shit. Sometimes we know things, sometimes we can find things that are lost, sometimes we might brew a tisane to break a fever and perhaps save a life doing it. But we can’t make ourselves rich or beautiful, we can’t magic ourselves omnipotent. Do you honestly think we’d choose this life if we had a choice?”

  Kit wasn’t sure, but she didn’t say so. What she did say was, “I don’t believe in witches. I can’t take that to my inspector.”

  “Then how did I know what you were when I first laid eyes upon you?” Kelly challenged.

  “A good guess,” said Kit, making to stand. The woman grabbed her hands again and held her tight.

  “Your father is dead, but he was a good man. You’ve a brother—he’s sick, but I cannot see why. Your mother thinks you . . . make . . . hats! How precious!” She laughed nastily. Still she did not let go of Kit, though the other struggled to pull away.

  “You might have asked around. You could have followed me. You could have—” Kit hissed.

  “When you dream, you sometimes dream your mother dead, with a pillow over her face and all your burdens lifted,” said Mary Jane Kelly flatly, and Kit deflated onto the bench beside her once again. Kelly waited until Kit had caught her breath, until she’d suppressed the sobs that shook her, until she sat straight, and raised her head to look forward into the darkness of the graveyard.

  “Will you help us?” asked Mary Jane, with no pleading. “Will you? I don’t know who he is, but I know he’s taking us for a purpose and he’s taking whores because we’re easy to find, and no one cares.”

  “I care,” said Kit, staring into the shadows, feeling as if they were opening up to receive her.

  “You don’t have to believe, but will you help?”

  “I’ll help,” said Kit, and it seemed her words also meant I believe.

  V

  “Caswell, there you are.” Makepeace buttonholed Kit the moment she set foot in the nick. “You’re presentable and you notice things. Come along.”

  Kit didn’t ask questions, just jogged to keep up with the Inspector’s long strides as he shot out the double doors and into some unprecedentedly bright September sunshine. The tall man hailed a hansom cab, yelled an address at the driver, and jumped in, gesturing wildly for Kit to hurry up. Before she managed to sit, the cab moved off with a jerk and she lost her balance, ending up in her boss’s lap. A mad scramble ensued as she slapped away helping hands and struggled to get her rear on her own side of the bench. She couldn’t help the blushing, though, or the dryness in her throat at the idea the Inspector might have thought her backside too peachy, too round, the hips too broad for a boy’s bony arse.

  But Makepeace said nothing except, “Comfy?”

  Kit nodded, then shook her head, then nodded again, then finally settled for peering out the window at the passing people and traffic and buildings. She didn’t look back inside until she felt the b
urn of her cheeks cool. She cleared her throat. “Where are we going, sir? If I may ask?”

  “We are going, young Caswell, to Mayfair.”

  “That’s a bit posh, sir,” she said before she thought that perhaps it wasn’t too posh for Makepeace—didn’t he have a rich wife? Hadn’t the gossip called him a social climber? She added lamely, “For me at least.”

  “A name has come up in our investigations, a young barrister, Montague John Druitt. Doctor Bagster Phillips, upon hearing this, suggested we might talk to someone who knows him rather well, before we attempt to drag a member of the bar into our delightful premises.”

  “And that would be, sir?” Imagining the answer to be Druitt’s parents or other family members, a wife or sweetheart of some description.

  “Sir William Gull.”

  “The Queen’s former Physician-in-Ordinary?”

  Makepeace’s eyebrows did their best to climb up under his hat and into his hairline. “You’re awfully knowledgeable, young man.”

  “My brother is sick, sir,” she said, honestly, having learned long ago that the best way to live a lie is to stay as close to the truth as possible. “I have spent some time researching the medical profession, looking for someone who might find out what’s wrong with him.”

  There was a stretching silence, which the Inspector broke with, “Ah.”

  Kit looked out the window again and realized they’d left Whitechapel well and truly behind: the men on the footpaths were better dressed, carried canes rather than sacks; the women wore dresses that cost more than she’d earn in six months, and they’d never have to worry about being attacked on the street. She thought of Mary Kelly’s words and wondered how many of those women might be the sort the killer was looking for—the sort he wouldn’t touch because to do so would be to bring more attention than he wanted, more attention than he could possibly handle. Without thinking she said, “Sir, do you believe in witchcraft?”