Tarnished

by Cooper, Karina

  “You’re all right,” I whispered again. It was all I could say.

  And it wasn’t true. For as long as that bastard lived, no one would be all right. Not my friends. My family.

  Not me.

  Gravel crunched behind me. I stiffened, my knees drawing up around Betsy’s sprawled form as if it would help protect her.

  Something large, funnel-shaped and brassy crashed to the ground beside me. I jumped, my arms tightening around Betsy.

  Etched metal gleamed dully.

  “I found this.” Zylphia’s voice brought tears to my gritty eyes. “It’s the top of some machine what makes noise.”

  As her words sank into my shocked, exhausted mind, I recognized the metal tube. “A gramophone,” I whispered. I laughed, but the sound seemed flat and tinny even to my own ears. “A recording.”

  “What?”

  I couldn’t stop laughing, even as I clutched Betsy to me. Even as another whistle blew shrilly, clear across the yard. “He recorded the sound of a train and played it,” I explained between hysterical gasps. Bloody hell.

  The gramophone certainly wasn’t in wide distribution, I’d only seen it once or twice in London above. And that at the occasional salon. I never would have expected its use below.

  My unnamed opponent had reach.

  I turned my head as Zylphia sank to a crouch beside me, reaching out a bare, dark-skinned hand toward Betsy.

  Whatever she saw on my face, it forced her to pause mid-reach. “Let me see how she is,” she said softly. “No need to get your back up for me. All right?”

  Her voice seemed too out of place. The rocks cut into the backs of my legs, the fog seeped into every pore of my skin. Cold and dank and hopeless. We were surrounded by rusting metal and empty trains and God only knew what dangers beyond. In her other hand, the outline of the rifle gleamed wickedly against the ground.

  I should have taken that and shot the bastard.

  I swallowed, shaking, and nodded. Held on to Betsy as Zylphia smoothed her fingers over her face, into her hair.

  My maid moaned.

  “A head wound,” Zylphia said, frowning as her pale eyes flicked again to me. “It’s still bleeding. We need to get her home.”

  A head wound could be nothing. Or it could be fatal. If she slept now, if my maid rested to heal, she might never wake again.

  Rage lit like a match inside my heart. “Can you take her up?” I demanded.

  She nodded, her beautiful face calm. I could only imagine what demons twisted mine, but as I rose, allowing my maid to sink into the crook of Zylphia’s arm, I didn’t care. “I’m going after him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “He won’t stop, Zylla.”

  Zylphia rose, her supple muscles supporting the lolling maid with more ease than I would have expected. She held out the rifle. “Take this. Can you shoot it?”

  I didn’t smile. My fingers closed over the stock, and though I wasn’t as familiar with such things as I desperately wished, I knew how to fire one.

  There are certain things required of any collector. A passing familiarity with whatever common weapons may be seized in moments of opportunity is one.

  I ran my hands over it in the gloom. A breech-loader, then. I’d have one shot apiece. “Ammunition?”

  She unhooked a small pouch from her waist, handed it to me. “Mr. Booth sent extra.”

  I found it remarkable that I’d never known of Booth’s propensity for firearms. I’d ask him about it in the future.

  Right now, I only wanted one thing. “It’s the sweet tooth, all right,” I said calmly, cracking open the trapdoor of the rifle and checking its load.

  Zylphia said nothing.

  “I’ve got him dead to rights. He worked with Woolsey,” I continued, strapping the ammunition belt across my hips. “Until he killed the man.”

  Cradling my maid, Zylphia watched me prepare in the fog. “Do you know who he is?”

  Betsy moaned.

  My fingers clenched on the rifle’s barrel. “I don’t.” The man clearly thought he knew me. I met her eyes, pale as stars. “I intend to find out.”

  They flickered. “Should I—”

  “Take her home,” I told her. “Get her above and make sure she’s all right, Zylla. I’m going after him.”

  “Where?”

  Of that, I wasn’t certain. Rubbing my face with a dirty, coal-smudged hand, I braced the rifle under my arm and studied the track as it vanished into the foggy dark. “He chose this station for a reason,” I finally said. Was that my voice? Tight and angry and so taut, it vibrated like a spring. “Heading into London proper might afford him a greater chance to hide, but the rotter doesn’t want to hide. He’s leading me somewhere, and he told me he’d be underground. Whitechapel Station only leads to one Underground route.”

  “Wapping isn’t far.” Zylphia followed my gaze, her eyes narrowed. “The Thames Tunnel?”

  I nodded. “It’s the only Underground entry for miles.”

  She didn’t need my explanation. Anyone who made a living below knew the legends of the tunnel. Not only was it a rumored entry into the London Underground, most of it remained abandoned by all but the meanest rogues.

  Her lips pressed together. She stooped to collect Betsy against her side once more, and threaded my maid’s arm around her shoulders. “I’ll be at the tunnel as soon as I can. Try not to engage him until I arrive, cherie.”

  I said nothing to that. There was nothing to say. By the time she made it back, I’d either have the bastard by the throat, or have died trying.

  Trusting in Zylphia, placing my dearest friend into the hands of a Menagerie spy, should have been so much harder to do. But as I ran along the dark tracks—as I passed the broken remains of a device so extraordinary I’d allowed myself to be fooled by it—all I felt was anger.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Fortunately for my fraying patience, I made it to the Whitechapel platform just in time.

  That is, just in time to slip into a freight car attached near the rear of the train as it slowly built steam. The whistle shrieked, and now that I was practically beneath it, I could hear the difference in pitch between the genuine thing and the copy.

  Had I not been so wound up, maybe I would have heard the difference then, too. Knew the trick for what it was, made the better choice.

  But wasn’t Betsy the better choice, regardless?

  I forced myself not to stew on the matter. Bring down the sweet tooth; that’s all I had to bother myself with.

  The train rumbled beneath me as I stared out at the passing fog. It whipped past at an alarming rate, raking through my hair and sending loosened hanks streaming in the wind. Even in the dark, it gleamed like blood on black glass.

  The man knew who I was. How? How had he known me to be a St. Croix?

  There were ways, I supposed. I stared out into the passing dark and ticked them off on mental fingers. The easiest was that he’d followed me to my home. It was possible I’d missed a tail in my hurry.

  Perhaps it was time to acknowledge my arrogance in believing I was so . . . bloody clever.

  Then, there was a chance of a Menagerie link. I imagine it wouldn’t be so hard to picture me with different color hair, once word of my lampblack trick got out. But this meant someone would have had to share. Zylphia? Or Hawke.

  But until recently, neither had known who I was. Hawke still didn’t, as far as I knew.

  I didn’t like not knowing this for certain.

  Or perhaps it was a man I’d met below, who had a keen eye for facial features? Few ever looked past the obvious black hair and goggles, but some could, I supposed.

  All right, so I couldn’t know how he’d learned of my identity yet, but maybe I could figure out why he’d targeted me. And he clearly had done just that, even so far as kidnapping my maid in order to secure my attendance to this debacle. Why?

  I didn’t know that, either.

  I was coming at this all wrong, wasn’t
I?

  The train shrieked, and I grabbed the wall behind my back for support as the cargo creaked and groaned around me. Frowning, I dug my feet hard against the boxcar floor and tried to think of it from a different angle.

  What did I know?

  All right, I knew that five women had been killed. Although the sweet tooth had only claimed the Menagerie women. He’d killed them and taken their organs, and then given them to Woolsey. Partner, he’d said. And friend.

  Some friend. He’d killed the poor professor.

  What is my motive?

  Me, apparently. All this to get me down here. Damn, but I wish I knew for sure what the devil was going on.

  The train screeched as it approached Wapping, brakes engaging. Sparks flew into the air, and I wrapped my hand tighter around the rifle as I gauged the moment.

  I had to time this most carefully. Large warehouses planted side by side left little enough room for the tracks between them, and the station itself was no more than a cramped collection of minor lanes tucked between.

  The ground rushed by me, slower now. Squinting, I barely made out the Wapping station sign as it whipped past on a fog-shrouded smear.

  It was now, or I’d miss the landing.

  “Allez, hop!” I whispered, and leapt out of the boxcar.

  For a moment, a heartbeat, I flew.

  In that eternal breath, it was as if I were once more safe in bed. Snuggling into my pillows, dreaming things so fantastic that even a child would be hard-pressed to believe.

  And then my body remembered.

  My legs loosened, my back twisted. Rotating in an easy spiral, I clutched the rifle to myself and kept my eyes on the ground. For all it felt like an eternity, the uneven cobbles approached all too swiftly for carelessness.

  As I hit the ground, I slid fluidly into a crouch, rifle across my thighs, and jammed one hand against the cobblestones for balance. I felt the shock all the way through my ankles, my knees and hips, but I’d made it.

  Tomorrow, I’d take the time to hurt.

  Like a cat, I launched immediately into motion. Wapping was desolate at best, a district whose only claim to civilization lay in the Thames docks surrounding it. The smell of the river oozed into everything, like something sour and spoiled. Once upon a time, Wapping been a veritable nest of sailors, boatbuilders, craftsmen and other such maritime folk.

  Then the London docks were built, and all of Wapping was swept away to make room for the warehouses now looming around me. God only knew what they held. Goods, one could imagine. Items ferried along the Thames.

  I darted between the warehouses, following the curve of the railway. It thrummed under my feet, echo of the train continuing through the tunnel. Now and then, a whistle shattered the silence. Sometimes another answered, from somewhere beyond.

  The rest of Wapping slept, I was sure, somewhere beyond the fog obscuring my view. One of the greater differences between London above and below was the sense of time. At home, we’d only now be engaged for dinner, whereas the poor folk below would be well on past supper. They worked hard, much earlier than I ever did.

  Well, much harder than Cherry St. Croix ever did.

  Wapping’s homes, arrayed along the Ratcliffe Highway beyond the railway, often remained oblivious to the events of the Underground, less than half a mile from their beds.

  All these thoughts drifted through my mind as I approached the Thames River Tunnel.

  It yawned like a great, gaping mouth, black as pitch and spewing forth coal-black mist. The very air rattled as I approached it.

  Sweat dampened my face, gathered under my arms. Nobody had ever said a collector’s life was delicate. I took a moment to wipe my forehead with my sleeve as I studied the dual tunnel entry.

  The Wapping train had just entered, well on its way to Rotherhithe. There wouldn’t be another for some time. I’d be free to follow the tracks as long as I needed to, although I suspected—hoped, really—that the sweet tooth would find me before I had to step off the path.

  I shivered, partly from cold but at least some from the knowledge that once I set foot inside that black cavern, I’d be well and truly alone.

  But for a murderer. And whatever vermin, bipedal or otherwise, scurried around beneath untold tons of mucky river water.

  I pulled the rifle stock against my shoulder, hand firm near the trigger, and clambered down the small decline. The darkness swallowed me without fuss.

  It reeked. Coal mixed with the humid wash of steam, with the hair-curling stench of sewage. And something else. Something that smelled as if it had died ages ago and only now settled into putrefaction.

  Unable to cover my nose, I firmed my grip on the rifle and forged through the miasma, guided only by the faintest trace of light from lanterns lit sporadically between girders.

  It was as if I’d stepped into some terrible dungeon. Dank and all too humid. Within moments, my shirt stuck to my back. Sweat pooled across my upper lip, but I didn’t dare wipe it away.

  I walked slowly. Cautiously. Every footfall crunched on the gritty remains of fallen rock or broken cobbles. Before my time, the tunnel’s use was relegated strictly to pedestrian passage. Curiosity brought droves of lookers and gawkers, but it didn’t last. Inevitably, it became the haunt of prostitutes and tunnel thieves.

  Remnants of this history lingered everywhere. Rubbish discarded along the track line, rotting cloth and worse. It had been cleared for the train more than twenty years ago, but that sort of business never stopped the really clever ones.

  Rumors of entry into an Underground unrelated to trains persisted.

  They were true.

  My fingers slipped on the rifle. I took a moment, wiping my hands on my shirt, and blew out a hard breath. Where to start?

  Well. There was the obvious tactic.

  “Hello!” I shouted, and listened to my own voice taunt and jeer in the echoes that followed. “I’m here!”

  I wouldn’t be able to see a bloody thing.

  As I passed one of the few lanterns, I paused, squinting in its weak light, and studied the chain fastening it in place. I don’t know who kept them lit—it could have been Metropolitan District Railway authorities, or perhaps the shady coves who used the tunnel more frequently—but it was an opportunity for me.

  Casting a hard look down both ends of the tunnel, I set the rifle down against the wall and reached for the lantern hook. Rust had soaked into it but good, eating away at the finish it must have once had. Wrestling it off the iron hook took some effort, and in the end, I was forced to seize the bottom in both hands, stick my arms straight up, balance on the very tips of my toes and manage an undignified wriggle and hop.

  The weight of it pulled me lopsided.

  The rifle clattered to the ground as I yanked the lantern back from a flame-killing tilt, and biting back a sharp incivility, I seized the crusted iron loop at the top.

  The light flickered dangerously.

  I held my breath, as if by doing so I could keep any drafts from blowing out the dancing flame. And expelled it on a sharp cry as arms slid around me from behind. Rough hands seized my wrists, yanked me backward.

  I swung the lantern on instinct, but the gloved grip around my wrist was unshakable. The light guttered, dangerously low, and I found myself wrenched off my feet, maneuvered as easily as if I stood in a ballroom with a masterful dancer.

  The air slammed from my chest as my assailant thrust me against the tunnel wall. Damp brick gouged into my cheek, dug sharply into my wrists and knees.

  How did he manage to put me in this bloody position every time?

  “You called, Miss St. Croix.” Pinning the wrist with the lantern to the wall, the man curved his other hand around my throat. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to taunt devils in the dark?”

  “You’re no devil,” I spat.

  He laughed. I struggled futilely against the weight of his back against my shoulders. Too heavy for me to hold at an angle, the lantern scraped across th
e brick as it fell from my fingers, and the sound echoed back at us like a primordial shriek.

  I flinched. “Let me go.”

  “So you can attempt to capture me?” He chuckled, lightly. As if he didn’t hold me like a butterfly to a laboratory board. “Why should I do such a thing?”

  “You deserve it,” I hissed. “Murderer.”

  “Ah.” That sound, again it came like a sigh. His weight shifted against my back, and his fingers tightened around my neck. He pulled my head back, forced me to stare up at a ceiling mired in damp grime. His breath wafted hotly into my ear. “Why do you fight me, my dear? We are the same,” he whispered. “You and I.”

  I bared my teeth, muscles straining as I attempted to push away from the wall. His hold. “Not hardly.”

  In my peripheral vision, I saw teeth flash. A smile? A grimace? It was impossible to tell. The lantern’s dim light only painted more shadows over his face, shrouded by a high collar and low hat.

  “We are both collectors, are we not?” His fingers clamped on my wrists as I struggled, our feet clattering against rock and rubble. He didn’t seem perturbed at all by the noise. “All that differs,” he explained softly, “is the size of the parcels we deliver.”

  “Prepos—”

  He pushed me aside. The brick scraped my cheek, and I cried out, flailed as I tripped over a foot so cleverly placed between mine. I clung to the wall for balance, fingernails snapped to the quick, but when I turned, I was alone again.

  Only the rapid echo of footsteps deeper in the tunnel assured me I hadn’t dreamed his presence.

  “Damn you,” I swore, and jerked the rifle into my hands. Heedless of the illogical attempt, I cocked it and fired into the dark. The muzzle flared, the report echoed back like thunder, but I knew I’d missed.

  I knew I’d wanted to miss. I didn’t kill. I never have, anyway, and the thought—

  No. I wouldn’t have that bastard’s blood on my conscience. I’d leave it to the Menagerie to do that much.

  But to do even that, I’d have to capture him. Alive.