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

by Paula Guran

  “I think, Mr. Makepeace, that I need to retire.”

  He nodded slowly and rose, hesitating until she offered her hand, which he held for too many moments as if he couldn’t find the right words. Kit escorted him to the door and pulled it open just as a small Chinese boy was poised to knock. His eyes went wide at the sight of them and Kit thought he might flee, but he seemed to calm down.

  It wasn’t the boy she’d sought, but she thought she recognized this one from other times. He pulled an envelope, thick and pearly grey from his pocket and handed it to her, then ran away without explanation.

  “What’s that, Miss Caswell?” asked Makepeace.

  She smiled and shook it gently. “Mr. Wing the apothecary sends herbs for Lucius, sometimes for Mother’s headaches, too. He is very kind.”

  Edwin Makepeace nodded and restored his hat to its place and bid her farewell. She watched him lope away, not wishing to close the door too quickly lest it cause him to suspect something was not as she would have him believe.

  Back in the parlor she found herself opening a mysterious missive for the second time, but at least she knew who’d sent this one. Inside was a letter and a key.

  On a single sheet of thin rice paper, Mr. Wing’s lovely script told her quite simply that the boy she’d wanted to speak with had been found. He’d been murdered; that the police had no interest in pursuing the crime. He wrote that yes, the boy had seen precisely what she’d thought, but he had no name to give, it was not a commodity in which he trafficked—all he had was the enclosed key, which was to the door in the floor and the door beneath. At the bottom of the page was a map, a miniature artwork in delicate pen-strokes.

  Kit felt a pain in her head and spots danced in front of her eyes. Muddy boot prints on the floor of the lock-up, a void on the left side of the right sole. Bloody boot prints on the floor of 13 Miller’s Court, an identical imprint. The very thing that had been staring her in the face, hidden in plain sight, one of a hundred ordinary details drifting in her memory.

  Kit took a deep breath and steadied herself. She still had her kit, and the gun and the brass knuckles. She’d been surprised when Makepeace hadn’t asked for the return of the Met’s property. In her room, she pulled an old tweed suit that had been her father’s from the back of the wardrobe and dressed carefully. The evening’s work did not call for a frock. She laced up her boots, then wrapped a thick scarf around her neck. She slipped into the overcoat, feeling the weight of the revolver still lurking there, then put the knuckles and the truncheon into the opposite pocket so there would be no careless mishaps.

  She told Mrs. K she was going out and not to worry, although Kit knew the woman would—but she wouldn’t stop her either. The landlady stood on the stoop, a stalwart silhouette against the interior lights. Kit’s bullseye lantern lit her way down the fog-obscured steps, a thin lonely band of hope piercing the moon dark night.

  XV

  The lock turned with no more than a whispered click. Kit pulled the trapdoor open and stared into the dark hole at her feet. She angled the lantern’s gaze downwards and made out a metal ladder, brick walls gleaming with moisture and a paved path perhaps nine feet down. The smell wafting upwards told her that this was part of the sewer system. She wrapped the scarf tightly around her mouth and nose; it helped a little.

  Tackling the rungs was a fraught exercise as she kept her grip on both the lantern—without it she was lost—and the ladder. She slipped once and almost fell, almost let go of the lamp, but recovered, breathing hard, hanging for a few moments by her injured shoulder, which had been healing well until that point.

  When she reached the bottom, Kit examined Mr. Wing’s map in the beam of light. She was thankful she didn’t have far to go—the apothecary had considerately marked out the number of paces she needed to cover before turning left, and then right, and then left and left again until she found herself standing before a heavy door, reinforced with rusting studs. The door beneath.

  Kit tiptoed close and put her ear to the cold surface, felt the slime of it against her cheek. She couldn’t hear anything on the other side, but from behind her, back in the tunnels where she’d come from, she thought she heard a splash. A rat. She closed her eyes and shuddered.

  She placed the lantern on the paving stones so she could fish around in her pocket for the trapdoor key; when she fitted it into the keyhole she was surprised that it wasn’t needed—the door fell open under her touch.

  Inside there was a chamber, well-lit by candles set in candelabrum of silver and gold—surely purloined—over which melted wax had spilled. A battered armchair with a fur carriage-rug folded on its seat sat in the middle of a large Persian carpet that had been ill-used. Beside it was a wide table piled with books and vials, pestles and dried ingredients, distorted things in specimen bottles and sharp surgical instruments in an open tooled-leather case, all glinting against the purple velvet lining, catching the reflections of myriad flames.

  The room was surprisingly warm, and almost enough incense had been burned to subdue the sewer-stink. At the far wall was an archway hung with a thick purple curtain. Leaving her own bullseye where she’d put it, Kit entered, sliding a hand into the pocket of her overcoat and finding the grip of the revolver, pulling back its hammer so it made a distinct snick.

  Kit froze, but there was no movement, no one charging out to stop her, and she breathed again, taking a handful of the curtain in front of her and pulling it aside.

  A smaller room again, lit as the first one, but empty of all but a low circular altar in the center, a pentacle drawn on its surface. At each point was a bottle about four inches in height, inside which danced a blue-white light, and in front of each bottle was an unidentifiable rotting lump, but Kit could guess what they had been: voice-box, uterus, kidney, finger, heart.

  In the center of it all was a long silver knife and a sad little gobbet of flesh, about three inches in length, like a fat worm; tiny arms, tiny legs, oversized head—it would never have a chance to grow.

  Kit swallowed and turned her attention to the man who stood beside this display and smiled at her.

  “Hello, PC Caswell.” Andrew Douglas had lost his civilized façade in the time since she’d seen him last. Or perhaps that was just because in this location he’d reverted to what he actually was; here, he did not hide behind a veneer of sophistication. Here, he was not the valued right-hand of a rich and famous man. Here, he was a rodent at home with his kin. “How’s your brother?”

  Kit cleared her throat but couldn’t find words. She should shoot him, she knew. She should just be done with it, but she needed—the witches needed—to know why. They deserved for someone to hear bear witness, for some kind of memorial even if it were an ephemeral one of words.

  “Cat got your tongue? Come to think of it, if you’d had any power at all I might have taken you and your busy little tongue.” He laughed at his own joke, then shook his head ruefully. “But you’ve got nothing, do you? Not even a tiny glimmer. You’re no use to me, but you might provide some amusement.”

  “Why?” she managed, voice weak, throat ragged. She tried again, “Why all this? Why those poor women?”

  “Poor women, poor women,” he sang like some grim lullaby. “They made their choices, Katherine—is it Katherine, isn’t it? Oh, I read all of your letters to Sir William, quite heart-wrenching the way you described your brother’s illness, how he’d stopped walking after your father’s demise, how you thought it might be psychological. What a clever girl you are,” he said admiringly. “I didn’t share them with him, obviously, your problems are far too small for the likes of such a great man, but they did provide me with much diversion and I was quite sad when you stopped writing.

  “Imagine my surprise when a PC turned up on the doorstep by the same last name. What were the odds of a Katherine Caswell having another brother, a Kit? I was fascinated, so I found those old letters and went to your address. There you were bold as brass in your nightgown, and there she was, the
lovely Marie Jeanette in all her slatternish glory. I knew she was the one. And then she went and hid from me, the bitch.”

  “Why?” she asked again, hating her pleading tone, hating the weakness and the fear, hating the power she was giving him by letting him know she was afraid, by letting him know she wanted an explanation before all this could end.

  “Sir William, that dear man, that great man, is unwell. I’ve tried everything to help him, every cure, every panacea, every remedy. Everything and nothing has worked.”

  Kit saw, at last, a hint of sincerity, a madness tempered by a reason however wrong-headed. “But you’re no doctor, and Sir William is old. He’s had strokes—this is a natural progression and deterioration of the body. You cannot stop age.”

  He raised his finger as a conductor would a baton, a schoolmaster a cane. “I may not be a physician, but I am something else, something better, something more puissant. I am a mage. I can summon angels and demons, I have souls to offer in return for Sir William’s continued good health for many years to come.”

  “You can barely summon the maid to bring tea. If you had any power at all you wouldn’t have needed to steal from those wretched women,” Kit said, unable to resist the urge to bait him. “You stole from them the way you stole from Sir William—his surgical knives, his candlesticks—that’s how you repaid him. Those women had so little and you stole that from them.”

  “What are their worthless lives compared to his? How many has he saved? Didn’t he save me from the streets, from poverty? Didn’t he raise me up and make me his closest confidant?” His shout in the confined space made her ears hurt. “And didn’t I know them? Didn’t I know what they were when I saw them?”

  “You saw them at séances, you fraud. You watched them use their abilities, you didn’t divine their secrets. You saw what they openly showed.”

  He shook with rage, but seemed to contain himself, before continuing on. “The first one was hard, I wasn’t sure of anything but my mission. It got easier, though. It got so easy I did two in one night, even though you interrupted me.” He gave a proud smile. “And then the last one, your Mary Jane, she was a delight. That was when I discovered I’d got a taste for it—not just the goal, but for the activity itself! The cut and the slice of it, the color, Miss Caswell. How is your brother, by the way?”

  She was puzzled by his repeated queries then realized his purpose—he wanted to hear Lucius had improved, that he was getting better. That Kit had accepted the deal Douglas had proposed, that Lucius was recovering and that Douglas’ power was confirmed—he couldn’t have known that Kit had been delayed that night, that she’d not intended to make a bargain with him. “He’s worse. Much worse. The doctor thinks he might die.”

  The man flinched as if slapped.

  “You are useless, powerless. All of this has been for nothing,” hissed Kit. She watched as the rage welled up again and spilled across his face. He snatched the knife from the altar and threw himself at her just as she managed to bring up the gun, still in her pocket, and fired. There was the smell of gunpowder, of burnt wool, and Douglas staggered as the bullet hit him low on the waist, but he kept coming. The dagger sliced across her chest, opening coat, jacket, shirt and flesh almost to the breastbone, then he drew back and plunged the blade to the hilt into her injured shoulder. She screamed. Douglas laughed and withdrew the weapon, raising it high for another stab.

  Kit reeled away, pain searing through her. She stumbled to the altar and her knees buckled, her flailing arms sweeping the glowing bottles to the floor. Douglas howled in fury as each and every one smashed on the stone flags. Kit tried to push herself up, to defend herself, to find the gun she’d dropped back into the depths of her pocket, but she fell to the side, her head landing beside the mass of broken glass and scattered spirits.

  She watched as white-blue flashes swirled and rose, spiraling upwards until they coalesced into a single tongue of flame. Douglas made an inarticulate noise, and Kit guessed he hadn’t really believed himself. That desperation, madness and misdirected hope had driven him. Well, she thought sleepily, now they both knew better.

  She could feel blood pooling under her; her limbs becoming heavy as sin, and she was hypnotized by the blue inferno that was moving closer to her. Then it was on her chest and she felt both heat and frost on the exposed flesh, and then . . . and then it was in her. Roaring through her veins, burning her alive, and the voices! Oh, the voices! A chorus of joy and release, freedom and relief, all limned with a dark desire for revenge.

  She only recognized one of them: Mary Jane Kelly was chattering away in Kit’s skull, marshaling the others, telling them what they must do.

  I didn’t betray you, thought Kit, I’m so sorry, Mary Jane, but I didn’t give you up.

  And in her head, that rolling lilt of two vales, dulcet tones that sounded like a song as they said If I didn’t know that, do you think I’d be here, you idiot? Now shut up, we’re concentrating.

  Kit felt herself lifted, floating up, up, until she hung, cruciform, a foot off the ground, light crackling around her, snapping like a bonfire. In front of her, Andrew Douglas stood, mouth agape, eyes empty of all reason.

  He watched as she hovered, as the pulsing flare drew in on itself, concentrated on Kit’s chest, then shot out like a ball from a cannon and set him alight. Where the witch-fire had not harmed Kit’s skin, it incinerated Douglas, ate him from flesh to bones, until there was only a pile of smoking cinders lying where he had once stood.

  Kit, momentarily still suspended, caught sight of a face in the doorway. Makepeace, disbelief and dismay scrawled across his features. Then the moment was gone and Kit dropped like a stone with a resounding thud. Her final thought before she comprehensively passed out was that she should have spoken to Lucius one last time.

  XVI

  “Well, Kit Caswell, you’ve certainly gone up in the world.”

  It had been almost six weeks to the day since Makepeace—suspicious enough to wait in the cold and follow her to the lock-up—had carried her out of the sewers and delivered her to the tender mercies of Guy’s Hospital, where she promptly developed a fever and hung between life and death for several days.

  The last time the Inspector had seen her was the morning the fever broke and she set about insisting she be sent home—and made herself thoroughly unpleasant until they discharged her. He then, by Thomas Wright’s account, allowed the creative tying up of the Ripper investigation’s many loose ends to keep him busy once he knew she was out of danger.

  Gruff and fatherly, and seeming to have come to terms with the fact that Kit was a girl, Wright had been a frequent visitor in and out of the hospital, dragging his wife and children along to see her as if she was some kind of circus attraction. Abberline had sent flowers—she didn’t know how much he really knew and didn’t much care.

  “Sir William is very generous,” said Kit, smoothing her dark green silk poplin skirt. Her hair had grown a little and she’d had some color in the mirror this morning, but even to her own eyes she still looked too thin. She was obediently eating everything Mrs. K put in front of her.

  “Very generous indeed,” said the Inspector, his gaze roaming over the rich furnishings in the sitting room. The house was the smallest one in the area, not overly grand, but lovely, well-appointed, and in the most expensive square in Mayfair, right across the park from Sir William’s own home.

  Kit was still getting used to having a maid and a footman, but Mrs. K reveled in her new element as housekeeper—having happily rented her own home out to a family of nine—and delighted to have people to boss around in her quest to organize everything for Miss Katherine and Master Lucius. Kit had rolled her eyes and threatened to put the woman out if she ever called them that again.

  “Very,” she agreed.

  Makepeace nodded and sipped the very fine Madeira Mrs. K had delivered earlier, then asked, “Was it by his will or otherwise?”

  “More or less by his own accord, although some persuas
ion was required. He had no desire for his good peers to know that his very own personal secretary had been none other than Jack the Ripper, carving up unfortunates for the purposes of black magic.”

  “Would they have believed such outlandish drivel?”

  “Doesn’t matter, Mr. Makepeace. Even the smallest amount of mud makes a mark on a spotless reputation. The moment an accusation was made against Douglas, people would have been brilliant in how much they always knew he wasn’t quite right.”

  “Poor Sir William,” sighed Makepeace.

  Kit grinned, then laughed. “Don’t worry too much about the old man, he’s become quite fond of Lucius and, for all his grumbling about blackmail, he quite likes me too. The deed to the house is in my name, there is a substantial sum in the bank and Sir William has engaged doctors to look into Lucius’ condition.”

  “Will he walk again, do you think?”

  She shrugged. “Perhaps, but if not, I’ll be able to care for him.”

  Makepeace hesitated then asked, “And your mother?”

  There was a long pause before she seemed to answer a question he hadn’t asked. “My father died because he was kind. Almost three years ago he came across a girl in a Limehouse street, the apothecary’s granddaughter. She’d been bludgeoned and stabbed—the two men who’d done it were standing over her. My father tried to defend her and the men attacked him, too. They both died watched by people too afraid to help either of them, but happy enough to recount the story afterwards.”

  Kit stared out the window into the pretty little garden covered in snow. “I like to think they weren’t alone, then, going into the darkness.” Kit thought of Mary Jane, and Cathy, Elizabeth, Polly and Annie, so isolated in their dying.

  “My mother despaired afterwards. You must understand, Inspector, she is not the woman she was—I have to remind myself of that every day. That woman did everything to try and keep us together, to keep us fed and clothed and housed. No one wants a clergyman’s family after the clergyman is gone.