These Ruthless Deeds

by Tarun Shanker

  “That’s right—I did that!” he yelled triumphantly at her. I couldn’t say what kept me moving, but we were at the end of the hall before I stopped to look back for Oliver, yelling and struggling with two more nurses who had arrived to restrain him. He should have slipped out from their grasp and caught up by now, I thought.

  “Wait!” I yelled to Miss Grey. “There’s something wrong with Oliver!”

  She stopped and we dithered in the shadows. I couldn’t leave him. A sharper panic was cutting through my general anxiety now.

  “We have to go—his power will return soon enough!” Miss Grey said, pulling Emily determinedly away from Oliver. I took a step back to him, and another to Miss Grey. My mind sped, knowing that I would be unlikely to free Oliver from three different guards. Whichever way I went, I would be failing someone. I felt sick, but finally rushed back to Oliver. I would not leave him behind.

  “Let go, you bloody bastards!” he was yelling.

  “Let go!” I joined in. “Stop it!” I tried to break them off him, but there were too many.

  One of the nurses pulled my arms tight behind my back, and thick palms gripped my ankles. I could feel the calluses through my stockings. I flailed wildly, but they easily pulled me down, experienced in controlling disorderly patients. One grunted and sighed before slapping me hard across the face with the back of a fetid hand, and I stopped struggling for a moment, disoriented by the shock of it.

  “Miss Grey!” I looked around through the sea of guards, hoping she’d managed to miraculously solve the problem. But her only response was a shriek as they restrained her and took Emily.

  As they dragged us away, I heard my companions’ screams and pleas as though underwater. They rushed over me but did not seem to sink in.

  A crackle rang out, a new sound amid the grunting of the guards. I turned to see a guard disappear through a strange sliver in the air that materialized out of nowhere. My heart dropped and I screamed.

  It couldn’t be.

  I began to struggle again but another crackle split the air, and the guards’ hands released me. I fell but did not hit the ground. Instead a solid arm found my waist, reaching through from a new world, pulling me away from the asylum and into a dark-paneled room with a blazing fire.

  I looked up, caught in his embrace, bewildered and gasping.

  “Hello, Miss Wyndham. I always did want to rescue you.”

  Chapter 2

  MR. KENT’S FACE WAS inches from mine, his brown eyes glittering, his smile uncontainable, his familiar scent of spice and smoke bracing. My head swam as I stared at him, unable to comprehend what exactly had happened.

  The smile turned into a frown. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I … don’t know yet.” He pulled me to my feet but kept one arm around my waist and I forced myself to reorient. Just seconds ago I was screaming and fighting through a dark endless corridor and now Mr. Kent was embracing me in a cozy study. Some part of me worried I was back in the asylum, drugged up and dreaming. “Where … are we? Is this real?”

  His mouth twisted with pleasure, dimpling one side of his cheek, and he drawled, “As thrilled as I would be to appear in your dreams as a daring, dashing rescuer, this is most definitely real. We’re in London. You’re safe now.”

  “How did—”

  That same crackle interrupted me with the answer to my question. Oliver and Miss Grey stumbled out of thin air, followed by two strangers, one carrying Emily, who appeared to be sleeping. I felt my breath leave me. The last time I’d seen someone travel like that was when Mr. Hale had come to help us find my sister, then cowardly disappeared into one of his doorways that could take him anywhere in the world.

  But neither of the strangers was him. One was a compact, well-built man in his thirties, wearing a threadbare, olive jacket that clashed with his bright-blue waistcoat and plaid maroon trousers. His dark hair was pulled into an old-fashioned queue and he sported a neat little mustache accompanied by an air of general disinterest.

  The one holding Emily was a very tall, slightly portly man in his forties. He set her down gently (if awkwardly) on a settee. She murmured and turned, eyes still closed. The man who carried her had a kind, square face that suggested a grave, trustworthy demeanor. “Is anyone hurt?” he asked, looking the rest of us over.

  I looked, too, and blood caught my eye. Slipping out from Mr. Kent’s grasp, I hurried to Oliver and Miss Grey, trying to assess their injuries.

  Oliver shook his head stubbornly. “Those guards don’t know how to punch,” he said, though his cuts, bruises, and bloody nose said otherwise. “I just don’t know what happened.…” He frowned hard and pushed at my hand, trying to slip through it. I frowned back. Perhaps he was just overtired.

  Miss Grey’s injuries were less severe, but I grasped her and Oliver’s hands tightly. Their minor cuts and scrapes began to fade before our eyes, while Oliver’s deeper cut started to close at a glacial place.

  “Marvelous,” the tall man murmured, eyes wide with reverence. He stepped in front of us. “Miss Wyndham, may I? I believe I can help.”

  Mr. Kent smiled over the man’s shoulder. “Captain Goode here can raise the strength of your power.”

  “Oh yes, we didn’t even introduce ourselves. How rude,” he said, removing his hat. He gave a small bow and offered his hand. “My name is Captain Simon Goode and my brother, Mr. Felix Redburn over there, is the one who brought us back here.”

  “I … thank you,” I said, leaving one hand on Oliver and taking Captain Goode’s proffered hand with my other. At his touch, a strange, calming glow filled my body from the center out. By the time I turned back to Oliver, his cut was fully healed. For one lovely moment everything seemed … safe.

  I moved to Emily’s side and touched her shoulder gently. She was breathing easily, and seemed to be in a deep sleep. Still, I kept my hand on her in case she had an injury I couldn’t see.

  Behind me, Captain Goode spoke again. “Please allow us to welcome you to the Society of Aberrations.”

  A chill cut through me, despite the warmth of power flowing through my veins. I whirled around to see Miss Grey’s tight expression. She’d heard him, too.

  “I know, Miss Wyndham,” Mr. Kent put in hastily. “I thought the name impossible myself. But it’s true: He really is called Captain Goode. Please go ahead and make what jests you will about it, but I believe I have covered most of them.” His joking did not mask the fact that Mr. Kent was very aware of why I had gone so cold.

  “The Society of Aberrations,” I echoed, feeling numb. How dare Mr. Kent bring us to them? The mysterious society that had funded Dr. Beck’s research on powered people. With their support, he’d kidnapped my sister and put her through his horrible experiments. Even if Sebastian and his fatal touch had unwittingly killed Rose in his attempt to save her, Dr. Beck and his patrons were the ones responsible for it.

  We were better off back in the asylum.

  Captain Goode’s slow voice came in starts. “Is there … something wrong? I don’t know what we’ve done to alarm you … but I’m sure—”

  “They’ve heard of us already,” Mr. Redburn interrupted, sauntering around the edge of a large desk and hopping up onto it. “And it doesn’t sound like they were pleasant things.”

  Captain Goode frowned. “I can assure you, we have only the best intentions.”

  “That’s what you call working with a deranged murderer?” I asked. I turned to Mr. Kent, barely able to look at him. “And now you’re working with them?”

  His face fell slightly. “Miss Wyndham, I’m sorry, I just—you disappeared for almost a month. Miss Lodge claimed you were sick, which I knew was impossible. So when these gentlemen approached me to join, my first thought was to ask for help finding you. But I would not have agreed to work with them if they hadn’t proven themselves. I asked them, in every way possible, of their motives.”

  Captain Goode was looking uncomfortable, shifting his weight in front of the fi
re. Mr. Redburn looked deeply unconcerned as he picked at his nails. Fine. Let them prove it once again.

  I turned back to Mr. Kent. “Then they shouldn’t mind if you ask them why they helped Dr. Beck kill my sister.”

  Captain Goode didn’t flinch. In fact, he gave a regretful nod. “Of course. I can’t begin to tell you how sorry we are about the fate that befell her—”

  “Did you support Dr. Beck’s experiments?” I interrupted, forcing away the bone-deep sorrow, not wanting an apology. Mr. Kent repeated my question.

  “Yes, with funding,” Captain Goode answered. “But we were unaware of the … horrible specifics.”

  “You didn’t suspect anything despite the fact that his patients were very often dying?”

  “Not at first,” Captain Goode said, shaking his head. “He kept his research very private—he was worried another scientist would steal his discoveries. We believe he only told us about a select few of his patients.”

  Not good enough. Perhaps they were able to resist Mr. Kent. “And how do I know your power is even working on them?” I said to him.

  He raised his brows for a moment before turning to Captain Goode. “Captain Goode, what is the first mildly embarrassing secret that comes to mind right now?”

  “I find Miss Grey rather pretty,” Captain Goode answered, pursing his lips in embarrassment.

  “Kent.” Mr. Redburn jumped off the desk. “I told you, the next time you decide to amuse yourself—”

  “He is proving his power is working, Felix,” Captain Goode cautioned, then gave Miss Grey a nod. “My apologies, Miss Grey.”

  Blushing, Miss Grey scrambled for a question to ask. “I—if you had known the specifics about Dr. Beck’s experiments, would you have let it continue?”

  Captain Goode shook his head vehemently when Mr. Kent asked the question for Miss Grey. “No. When we started to suspect the truth, someone was sent to watch over him.”

  “And that someone was Mr. Hale, yes?”

  “It was.”

  “Then why was Mr. Hale terrified of the Society of Aberrations?” I put in. I remembered Mr. Hale’s fear vividly. Because of Rose’s charm power, he’d grown to love her while she was Dr. Beck’s captive—so much so that he gave us the information to find her. But when we asked for his help to rescue her, his fear of the Society outweighed his love. He warned us to pray they didn’t learn of our powers.

  And here we were.

  “Because Mr. Hale was a criminal and he knows we don’t tolerate powers to be used in harmful ways,” Captain Goode answered.

  “When I first dreamed of powered people, I did see him steal from a man and drop him in front of a carriage,” Miss Grey said, reminding me of her story. “I don’t know that the man survived.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Captain Goode said with a sigh. “We made it clear he would be put in a prison if he continued like that. We tried to set him on a good path, teaching him to use his power to help people. But it’s been deeply disappointing that he’s run away. We’re trying to locate him again.”

  “Why?” Mr. Kent asked.

  “His power to create portals can be incredibly useful or incredibly dangerous. We want to find him before he hurts anyone. We’re concerned about what he’s done to warrant running away. And what he might be doing next.”

  “But by all means, continue to throw more wild accusations at us,” Mr. Redburn said, lighting a cigar. “Perhaps our rescue wasn’t up to your standards?”

  Captain Goode shook his head at his brother. “Your worries are perfectly reasonable,” he reassured me. “I will answer anything you wish.”

  He seemed to have an answer for everything. Even though it should have assuaged my fears, it only bothered me more. Miss Grey and I had spent the last few months dreading the Society of Aberrations, trying to imagine how they could be worse than Dr. Beck and how they could scare Mr. Hale. We hadn’t ever considered they’d rescue us and claim to be the good ones.

  I gave Mr. Kent another question to relay. “Does the Society of Aberrations want to hurt us?”

  “No, of course not,” Captain Goode answered, looking a little wounded himself.

  “Does the Society want to or have any plans to experiment on us?”

  “No, we would never let Dr. Beck’s work continue.”

  “Then what do you want from us?” Miss Grey asked.

  “We want to invite you to join us,” Captain Goode said after Mr. Kent played the parrot’s role again. “Because I believe we want the same thing. There’s a reason you risked your safety to rescue Miss Kane. Why you sought out Mr. Myles. You want to help others with these powers. Teach them, protect them, guide them. And you want to help the world with those people. Is that correct?”

  It was. I had spent months trying to find some goal, some purpose that I could cling to in the dark haze of Rose’s death. Miss Grey and I had talked at length and I finally believed that this was what Rose would have wanted. She would want me to help everyone I could.

  If only they hadn’t killed her.

  “It is.…” Miss Grey was answering Captain Goode, looking torn between hope and caution.

  “That is exactly what we do here. It’s what we’ve been doing for more than two hundred years. As a quiet, rather secret branch of the British government.”

  At that we all paused. “You are part of the government?” I asked slowly.

  “Indeed.” Captain Goode nodded after Mr. Kent asked the question for me.

  “But … Dr. Beck spoke as if these powers were new.” I felt entirely confused and annoyed, as if I’d finally accepted that the sky was green, only to be told it was yellow.

  “He didn’t trust us with some of his findings, so we didn’t trust him with some of ours. And the past didn’t concern him because there wasn’t proper scientific evidence. But I think the past concerns you.”

  “What do you mean?” Miss Grey asked.

  “It would be easier if I showed you,” Captain Goode said, gesturing to the door. “Felix, will you watch Miss Kane?”

  “Gladly,” he responded, blowing out a puff of smoke. “She’s the most appreciative of the lot.” He gave his brother a mock salute and threw himself onto a settee across from Emily. She was still breathing easily, a slight huff as she exhaled, and I cautiously left the room, Mr. Kent giving me a reassuring nod.

  We followed Captain Goode up a set of stairs near the front of the building. Miss Grey was stepping neatly at Captain Goode’s side, cocking her ear up to him as he pointed out various pieces of interesting artwork. Oliver kept testing his power, shoving at the walls, but it seemed to have disappeared entirely. He grew more and more frustrated as we continued the tour.

  I did not know what to think. The Society of Aberrations was actually a part of our government? It made no sense at all, but how could the two men lie with Mr. Kent here to test their responses? I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself, to think rationally. I glanced around and at first there didn’t seem to be anything revelatory about the place. It looked much like other societies I’d visited before, furnished as a cozy home away from home, with paintings, sculptures, and significant items to display the Society’s illustrious members, accomplishments, and history.

  Except, as I peered closer at a lovely portrait, vibrant against the dark paneling, I realized that the young woman featured wasn’t contemplating a book of poetry or sighing at her vanity—she was concentrating on a ball of fire held between her hands. Farther down the passage, a scene that could be illustrating The Tempest: an old man reaching at a stormy sky swirling above him. Even in a small frame, a young man posed next to a simple vase full of flowers had something strange and unique featured—all the flowers seemed to be encased in a layer of gold.

  “I would much prefer that gent’s talent,” Mr. Kent said from behind me, his voice warm in my ear. A few strands of hair fell over his brow as I turned and saw him smiling confidently. He offered his arm and I took it, continuing down the gallery wa
tching the styles of artwork and the fashions portrayed change with the times.

  “I haven’t forgiven you yet,” I said.

  “I’m looking forward to convincing you,” he responded with a soft chuckle.

  Finally, we passed through the seventeenth-century works and found ourselves in the main foyer of the building. Captain Goode stopped in the center of the room and gestured up above the open stairs to a large portrait of a domineering man in a splendid cape and jaunty hat. It even had a feather.

  “That is Jonathan Reed,” he said. “He founded the Society of Aberrations in 1688 after assisting King William and Queen Mary. He and the three other original members were instrumental in the Revolution and were asked to work together as a special branch for the King and Queen.

  “There was a woman who could fly, a man with extraordinary speed, and another like me, who could affect the levels of their abilities.”

  I stared in wonder at Mr. Reed’s fading portrait, though there didn’t seem to be anything visibly remarkable about him like the other subjects. “And what was his power?” I asked.

  “The same as Miss Grey’s. He could dream of powered people. And as the first known person born with powers, he was the one to bring the Society together.”

  He gestured to another wall of the foyer that displayed three more portraits. “And the other founders had powers vital to its growth. Without their flyer, they wouldn’t have been able to reach new recruits. Without their runner, they wouldn’t have been able to grow so quickly. And without their enhancer, they wouldn’t have been able to discover the extraordinary limits of these abilities. But together, they were able to build a Society invaluable to our country. We would like you to join us. You would, in a sense, act as British agents.”

  Perhaps I had never really woken up this morning.

  “I think he’s trying to tell you that you are part of a long-lost prophecy, Miss Grey,” Mr. Kent remarked.