There were evenings when I came by not for business, but to visit with the women I knew and pass an idle hour between collections. I had not, to my recollection, spent much time with Jane.
Still, my reputation here tended to invite speculation. A woman collector, and one the ringmaster tolerated.
“Of course,” I said, and doffed my cap—as gentlemen do. Talitha’s cheeks turned pink.
I took my leave, but did not have to change course too much. The amphitheater had been situated well away from the din of the main structures and circus tent. As I followed the lantern-lit path, I went over my questions in my head. Over and over, they flitted in and out, haunting my every step.
I passed others on the paths. Some working, some patrons. It wasn’t until I passed a group of boisterous young men clad in Greek togas that the first inklings of trouble crept upon me.
Like much of the Menagerie’s façade, the theater looked simple and elegant from the outside. The gilded edges were appropriately burnished, decoration stylish without edging into an eyesore, highly reminiscent of Vauxhall’s now faded glory.
I pushed through the doors, murmured, “Collector business,” to the men who guarded them, and was directed toward the interior.
At least Hawke hadn’t ordered me kept out this time.
I didn’t go through the front entryway, knowing it would lead me into the very front of the amphitheater. That was one of the many hidden tricks of the Menagerie. You were often placed in the eyes of those you mingled with. Though discretion came at a price, subtlety was not for sale.
So forearmed, I stepped into the servant halls, followed the faceless walls until I came to another door, and carefully cracked it open.
The strains of a violin slid through the gap, low and sultry. I saw a sliver of light, a brush of mysteriously healthy plants, and an alcove just beyond.
I would wait there, then, and gain Hawke’s attention as I could. Quickly, crouching low, I pushed open the door just enough to let me through, and gently closed it behind me. As the unnatural warmth of the theater seeped into my clothing, I hurried into the shrouded alcove.
It wasn’t until I’d situated myself just beside the lush foliage of a hanging plant did the scene shimmer into complete focus.
I stopped. I stared.
The theater had been transformed into a decadent bathhouse, with verdant plants hanging all about and steam vented through mysterious contraptions in the walls. Water sloshed from long, shallow bathing pools, and laughter mingled with the occasional husky cry of something less than innocent taking place beneath the water’s surface.
My face flushed as I saw naked limbs and bared bosoms. Men and women entwined together; some lazily, as if luxuriating in the total absence of demand, and others tightly, impatiently. Skin gleamed. For the first time in my handful of years frequenting the Menagerie for business, I had an unfettered view of more flesh than I ever thought to see in one immoral tableau.
Men’s flesh.
Women’s flesh.
I gripped the pillar beside me, my fingers digging into the cool grooves. Unbidden by me, my eyes slid over the lengthy flank of a man’s exposed buttock. The muscle flexed as he rose over a woman who rolled under his grasp in the water, laughing and splashing.
My mouth opened. It closed again.
I saw the rosy tip of a woman’s nipple painted with wine before it vanished into another woman’s mouth. I recognized some; sweets, of course, earning their keep.
And how.
My throat went dry. My heart, once in my chest, now pounded somewhere lower than my stomach.
What the devil had I wandered into?
Sucking in a deep breath, I forced my attention away from the bathing pool and toward the dais raised in the center. Wry amusement slipped in beneath sudden, horrific embarrassment as I recognized Micajah Hawke upon the throne.
Like some reincarnation of the hedonistic god of wine, the wicked man sprawled lazily on a throne entwined with grape vines. A woman sprawled at his left, another at his feet like some nymphlike supplicant. The latter was draped in a sheer bit of nothing, lavender and damp with sweat, and the press of her breasts were obvious through the thin fabric.
The other, beautiful at his arm, was naked. Milk-white skin, flushed pink with the steam and heat, golden hair, luscious mouth. She was perfect.
I found myself envious.
Unlike his guests, he wore formal dress again. His trousers were black and molded to the powerful line of his thigh, draped carelessly over the vacant arm of the throne. His boots were perfectly shined. This time, it was a violet waistcoat, but as my eyes trailed up the perfectly accentuated line of his chest, I realized that his shirt was open to the waist, revealing the heavily muscled edge of his chest and one flat nipple.
I’d never seen Hawke in anything like this.
My legs squeezed together. The sensation this unconscious act provoked sent sparklers into my mind, and I clenched my teeth. This was the Menagerie, I reminded myself. This is what they did.
It was no different from the bidding rings of Monsieur Marceaux’s circus. Much more expensive, to be sure, but the end result was the same. Flesh peddled; flesh owned.
I wasn’t so stupid as to consider the sweets’ role here as ornamental, right? Then certainly, the same could be said of the ringmaster.
My grip tightened on the pillar. Another low moan reached my ears, masculine and throaty, and I don’t know why the sound curled into my skin and caught fire.
I leaned my feverish temple against the pillar, relieved as the cool stone soothed that bit of skin.
Then stiffened again as one of Hawke’s gloved hands skimmed over the thigh of the woman beside him. She stretched languorously, the soft skin of her belly tightening, and his fingers danced across it lightly.
Someone called something to him, and he answered in his husky voice. Teasing, tempting. Doing what he did best; inciting and inferring. I don’t know what. I couldn’t make heads or tails of the tableau in front of me, inside me.
All I knew was that his hand slid over the woman’s breast, over her throat, and his laughter rose rich and throaty.
I’d never seen him laugh before.
It changed him, softened the planes of his face without losing the edge that made him so mysterious and terrifying and beautiful all at once. It filled his eyes and spilled from his mouth and entered my skin as if it were his hands on me; his fingers in my hair.
I gasped.
And although I would swear the sound wasn’t nearly enough to be heard across the vast, crowded theater, his head rose. His dark eyes pinned on my dark alcove; it had to be the opium that caused me to fancy that I could see the burning streak of blue from this distance.
His eyes narrowed.
I forgot how to breathe. Sweat gathered along my spine. The room was hot, too bloody hot, and if I let go of this pillar, I’d fall to a useless tangle of melted limbs.
And still I watched him as his smile started slowly. Stretched like a wolf’s, all teeth and sensual, seductive leisure. He reached out an imperious hand, still gloved, his other still settled possessively at the sweet’s narrow, naked waist. That hand beckoned me.
Come to me.
A demand. A dare.
Every nerve ending in my body shuddered. I met that gaze from across the amphitheater, no longer sure that he couldn’t see me. That he couldn’t see my pink cheeks, smell the salt and sweat of my body.
See my fear.
I withdrew. Forcing every limb into action, I peeled myself from that pillar, stumbled through the shadows of the alcove and fell back to the relative safety of the servants’ halls.
I was used to tracking prey through all manner of conditions and environs. I had been in the ruins of Vauxhall at the stroke of midnight, stalked a ruffian through the Underground tracks and even caught a man just on the edge of my own district above the drift.
But I knew this wasn’t the same.
Here, I was the prey, a
nd I didn’t like it one bit.
Or . . .
Did I?
As soon as my wobbling knees could support my weight, I fled the amphitheater entirely.
I didn’t make it out of the Menagerie before I was caught.
I was halfway across the grounds, talking myself into coming down again another day to face—I mean, confront Hawke, when I heard a familiar voice. “Cherie!”
Turning, I scanned the dark stalls and cleverly arranged walls. On a market night, the stalls would have been brimming with wares, from the sublime to the sensual. Human or otherwise. Right now, everything was dark, and I had to strain to see the shadow flitting between the slats.
As it passed under the lamps, I relaxed. “Zylphia, what are you—?” Then I saw my friend’s face, and I hurried to meet her. I wanted to reach for her shoulders, to grab her, make sure that she was as hale as she appeared, but Zylphia didn’t like to be touched.
She got enough of that every night. Whenever I kept her company, I made it a point, a courtesy, to respect her wishes. So instead, I tucked my hands at my hips and demanded, “What happened? Whose fingers shall I break?”
Zylphia was a prostitute, a Midnight sweet. Retained exclusively by the Menagerie, she was one of many beautiful women to choose from, and I knew that they lived a much better life than many of the fallen women who worked below.
She was truthfully the most lovely woman I’d ever seen. An exotic mulatto, with skin the same color as my favorite black tea lightened with a dollop of cream. Her eyes were shockingly blue, legacy of her unknown white father, and her hair a full mass of wavy black, with enough unusual kink to point to her Negro slave mother. It hung rich and heavy to her hips, thicker even than mine.
Tonight, it was twisted into exotic braids and peppered with speckled feathers. Much of her skin was bare to the cold, clad in some fur-trimmed frippery, but it wasn’t a sight that shocked me anymore. I was used to Zylphia’s unusual dress, for she often wore costumes designed to tempt the palate of whatever men—or women, she’d once told me—bid to buy her company.
The Menagerie maintained order on its own ground, and the women were not cruelly treated; but one look at Zylphia’s grim expression, and my annoyance flipped to worry.
“I’m glad I found you,” she said, bending to catch her breath. “Need . . . to talk.”
I let her catch her breath, which allowed me to grab ahold of my own mind and focus it firmly on my friend. Of all the sweets at the Menagerie, Zylphia had somehow become a confidant of sorts. A friend where I hadn’t expected to find many. While I’d never given her a name to call me, she liked to call me the French cherie.
It was close enough to Cherry that I had to keep from snickering every time I heard it.
She’d been here when I delivered my first Menagerie bounty, and I suspected she would stay long after I departed.
She straightened, her flushed cheeks fading as she took a deep breath. “I heard you’d come by the other night,” she said, “but I didn’t see you.”
I winced. “I left rather quickly.”
She nodded, braids sliding over her shoulders, and I waited. My friend was working up to something. As I took in the chill, I watched her hands work through the plaits. Then, looking once over her shoulder, she blurted, “There’s been a murder.”
It’s impossible not to blanch at a statement like that. “What?”
“It’s Annie.”
I drew a mental blank. “Annie?”
Her long-fingered fists clenched in front of her. “Someone killed our Annie. That bastard killed her, he did, and I’m going to make him pay.”
The only other murder I’d heard about was the prostitute in the East End. I frowned. “Do you know who Leather Apron is?”
Zylphia shook her head so hard, her braids fell over her shoulders like oiled snakes. “No, but he’s like as not what killed Annie,” she said, and I covered my face as my confusion only grew. “Bad enough the first was.”
“Stop,” I said through my fingers. “Wait. Let’s go over this again, Zylla. There’s been a murder, entirely different from the one in the papers?”
“Yes.”
A cold wind swirled around us, and I shivered, suddenly all too aware of the dark pressing down from all sides. The lit path was only a few steps away, but I didn’t walk toward it.
“You remember Annie?” Zylphia pressed. “Red-haired bit of a thing, had the youthful look about her. The men what like the innocent faces liked that one.”
And suddenly, I remembered. Shorter even than me, with freckled skin and a laugh reminiscent of a child’s. I dropped my hands. “No,” I breathed. She’d been sweeter than treacle and bawdy enough to keep me in stitches of laughter the few times I’d talked with her. “Zylla, I’m so sorry.”
Zylphia nodded, once. “We aren’t to talk about it.”
“Why?”
She shrugged, her bare shoulders graceful and smooth. “But that bastard what killed her, he took her apart like she was a doll. We was wondering . . .” She trailed off.
“Wondering?”
She tucked her fingers under her chin, frowning down at me. “You’re a collector. Did you hear of a price on Annie?”
I thought back to the wall of bounties; parchments and scrawling littering the surface. I made it a point to read as many as I could. I needed to be paid, after all, and some were easier to earn the coin than others. “No,” I said slowly. “I saw nothing of the sort. And you know it’s a dead man walking what puts a price on Menagerie employees.”
Zylphia’s face crumpled.
It was more than I could stand. “How can I help?” I demanded.
She took in a shuddering breath. “Annie wasn’t our first,” she admitted, and my eyebrows climbed as I stared at her. She hurried to add, “There’s been three other girls, all murdered by the same bastard what did Annie. Three sweets and one common dove. That one, her name was Mary.”
“How do you know it was the same killer?”
Her mouth set. “He’s a ripper, that one. He took bits.”
“Bits?”
“Bits of them,” she clarified. “Liver and such. You don’t forget a mark like that.” Her white teeth flashed, all the more startling a grimace for her tea-dark skin. “We wasn’t to say anything at all.”
“By whose order?” I demanded, only half listening now.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. That rotten, serpent-tongued two-faced thief. Not only had Hawke stolen my bounty, he’d gone and kept this from me, too.
Her gaze searched my face earnestly. Very slowly, she caught my hands and tucked them together, palm to palm. So surprised was I that she’d touched me, I could only stare as she said softly, “He’s killed enough of us. We’re scared, and we want him brought to justice.”
I blinked. “I don’t suppose you mean a magistrate.”
“Our justice,” Zylphia explained grimly, but said nothing else. She didn’t have to. I opted not to ask. There were some things I needed to do with as clean a conscience as I could.
“What do you need from me?” I asked, frowning. “What can I do?”
Zylphia squeezed my fingers, then let me go, once more stepping out of reach. “We—that is,” she amended, “the girls and I, we want to hire you to collect the ripper.”
My stomach flipped.
“We can offer coin, but not enough,” she continued hastily. As if by giving me time to think, I’d say no. “So we’ve gathered what we could together, and we can make up the difference with a ball of opium Preshea was given from one of hers.”
I want it. It was the only thought that filled my head as Zylphia’s offer registered. “What size?” I asked.
She held up thumb and forefinger, creating a circle big enough that I’d be set for at least a season.
But even as my greedy body yearned for it, I knew it didn’t matter. There was such hope in my friend’s eyes. Such fear.
And I’d already decided, even before
offer of payment.
I nodded. “You and your girls have yourselves a collector,” I said, but it seemed too sparkling, too brisk to my own ears.
This wouldn’t be easy.
But for Zylphia, for the girls she befriended, for the simple fact that I wanted to see Micajah Hawke’s smug expression fade as I dropped the murdering bastard at his lying feet, I said yes.
Let that teach the man to keep secrets from me.
Zylphia had precious little information. The sweets had been lured or stolen from the Menagerie grounds and found elsewhere in Limehouse. The first victim, the doxy called Mary I’d read about in the paper a month ago, had been found near her own rented rooms in the East End. Four murders over the course of four weeks.
Five victims, actually, if I could count the latest in the paper. All brutal. All done by the same man? God, I hoped so . . . To think there might be two horrifically unhinged killers stalking London below gave me chills.
But I knew one thing: I wasn’t looking for an immigrant, and possibly I could release any of the more prominent gangs from my scrutiny. Say what you will about the criminals and the Chinese, none of them were stupid. Laying a finger on a sweet was tantamount to signing over your life, and I didn’t know of a single Chinese man or gang leader who’d give the Karakash Veil reason to come calling.
How in God’s name had the other murders gone unreported? The same papers that wrote about Leather Apron’s latest surely wouldn’t have passed up the chance to print something about mangled Menagerie sweets.
Unless the Karakash Veil had quashed it so thoroughly that no one else knew. That might have explained Hawke’s recalcitrance at my presence. I was an outsider, and not even a paying customer, at that.
That meant Zylla had taken a major risk in hiring me. I’d have to tread carefully, lest I get my friend in trouble with an employer not especially well known for mercy.
The first thing I needed to do was get a lead. The problem was, I had nothing to go on.
Of course, I rarely had more to go on than a name and a motive. Sleuthing, I’d long since learned, came in different forms. The first was careful, cautious study. Evidence. Trailing folk and putting the clues together.
Tarnished Page 10