by Coleen Kwan
A storm of blows suddenly rained down on him, landing sharply on his head, shoulders and back. Wincing, he twisted round to find Sir Thaddeus laying into him with his cane. As he flinched away, Nellie launched herself at Sir Thaddeus, her lips drawn back in a primitive snarl. Her gloved hand was extended, ready for her claws to bite into him, but at the last minute Sir Thaddeus spun round and slashed his cane hard upon her arm. The sickening crack of wood against bone echoed through the room. Gasping in pain, Nellie fell to her knees.
“Nellie!” Julian cried, his hold slackening.
The momentary lapse was all the man in his grip required. With an almighty heave, he broke free of Julian’s hold, drew back his fist and ploughed it straight into Julian’s jaw. White stars exploded in his vision as agony shattered through his chin. He struggled to his feet, instinctively putting up his fists in a defensive stance. Kray threw another punch at him. This time he managed to duck, but it still caught him a glancing blow on his cheek. Hot salty blood spurted into his mouth. He spat, dodged another haymaker and slammed his fist onto Kray’s nose. Cartilage crunched beneath his knuckles. The man staggered back, bellowing as blood gushed from his nostrils.
Fully occupied with Kray, Julian did not see the cane swinging towards him until the last second when he heard it whistling through the air. By then it was too late. With agonising force, the rigid cane cracked against his left temple. Excruciating pain burst through his skull. He felt his knees collapsing beneath him. He cursed his weakness but could do nothing as he slid to the floor.
Nellie rushed to his side. Through the blackness fogging his senses, he felt her hands moving anxiously over him, before she was suddenly wrenched away from him. He shouted and received another blow to his pounding temple. Nausea gagged his throat. Rough hands grabbed the lapels of his coat, before a series of brutal punches rocked his head from side to side. Nellie screamed. The battering continued until Sir Thaddeus barked out, “Enough. You’re making too much noise and wasting time. Take him to the other room.”
Julian flailed his arms at the man holding him, but his body refused to obey him. He felt his feet being lifted before he was unceremoniously dragged out of the room. As he slid past the curtain, he made one final attempt to lift his head. Through his bleary eyes, the last thing he saw was Nellie facing off against Sir Thaddeus, her scars jagging like lightning across her white face.
Nellie glared at Sir Thaddeus. Pain reverberated through her arm where his cane had struck her and found its echo in the headache pounding against her skull. “Why are you here?” she flung at Sir Thaddeus. His fastidiously dressed figure filled her with revulsion. At the back of her mind lurked the sour possibility that she and Julian had walked into a trap set up by Madame Olga and Sir Thaddeus. “Why are you so concerned about Pip’s visits to a spiritual medium?”
Sir Thaddeus flicked at some dirt on the sleeve of his coat. “I’m interested in everything he does. I have to be, or that foolish boy will wander into more trouble.”
“You enjoy your power over him, don’t you? To you he is a mere commodity, a pawn in your machinations. You cannot abide him slipping out of your control. That’s why you took the trouble of visiting Madame Olga and paying her to say certain things to Pip. You would stop at nothing to maintain your hold over him.”
Sir Thaddeus pulled a face. “Pah, the boy’s a nincompoop, but he is still an Ormond and my only son and heir. I won’t leave anything to chance. I had a specific arrangement with the filthy witch who lives here. Where is she?”
Nellie’s heart sank. Madame Olga had made no mention of Sir Thaddeus visiting her tonight. Perhaps she’d forgotten, or, more likely, she hadn’t cared, her greed for Julian’s money overriding everything. Nellie cast an anxious glance at the curtain. What was that brute doing to Julian back there? She could hear some shuffling sounds which did not sound like blows, and for that she was grateful.
“You’ve played some hoax on my son. I see that now.” Sir Thaddeus glowered at her as he took in the full detail of her dress. “The devil take you, you hellcat. What nonsense did you fill that boy’s head with?”
He poked the end of his cane hard against her stomach. She choked with anger and thought about lunging at him with her claws unsheathed. If she aimed correctly, she’d hook his cheek nicely. But just as she tensed her hands, he jabbed at her again, harder this time, causing her to stumble backwards. With chilling speed, he grabbed her gloved hand by the wrist and twisted her arm behind her back. The bruised bone and muscle of her injured arm cried out in protest, but she bit her lip to silence herself.
“Pip is frightened of you,” she managed to pant out, “but he’ll never respect or love you. Never.”
“As if I care tuppence about that.” He wrenched her arm harder. “It’s naught to me as long as he marries the girl I’ve picked out for him.”
“Oh, yes. The so-called message from beyond the grave you paid Madame Olga to deliver. So who is this Miss Montague? Some weak-chinned inbred miss with high arches and thin blood?”
“Hold your tongue, harpy.” He cuffed her across the head. She ducked, but he grabbed hold of her hair and yanked her upright. “Now move,” he ordered. Her scalp stinging, she had no option but to obey.
She staggered past the curtain and into the room beyond. They were in some sort of grubby kitchen which reeked of stale drippings. The shabbiness of the room only highlighted the horror of seeing Julian lying on the floor, arms and legs bound with stout rope, a filthy cloth gagging his mouth. His eyes were shut, and he appeared insensible, while the bestial lout stood over him, one dirtied boot resting on Julian’s shoulder.
“What now, guv?” From his coat Kray drew out a long knife and ran his thumb along the wicked edge, his eyes never leaving Nellie. “I wouldn’t mind finishing the job I started on this hoyden. I could add a few more stripes to ’er face. Make ’er real pretty.”
At the sight of that familiar knife Nellie shuddered, the scars on her face itching and tingling at the memory.
“You’re all talk and no show, I’m beginning to suspect,” Sir Thaddeus grumbled. “Why should I pay you when I have to correct your bungles?”
The man kicked pettishly at Julian’s comatose form. “Killing ain’t as easy as it looks.”
“Of course it is. You just have to go about it with purpose.” He pushed Nellie forward. “See to the wench. Tie her up properly.”
Nellie’s determination to struggle dissolved as the knife blade glinted closer. That same knife had carved into her face, had sliced through her fingers, had stabbed at her defenceless body. Dread and loathing numbed her as Kray dragged her to the far side of the kitchen. He fished out a length of rope from his pocket and swiftly bound her hands behind her back. Forcing her to the ground, he tied her ankles together, his hands jerking the rope viciously, then shackled her to the leg of a cumbersome table. When he balled up a greasy rag and kneeled down, she twisted her head from side to side in protest, but to no avail. He stuffed the loathsome cloth into her mouth until she was almost gagging.
“Don’t you look dainty?” He pinched her scarred cheek hard. With both feet, she aimed a kick at his exposed ankle. He yelped and backhanded her across the face.
“Stop that racket,” Sir Thaddeus barked. “I can hear someone on the outer stairs.” A knock sounded on the front door. Fixing his glare on Nellie, Sir Thaddeus muttered, “You’ll keep your mouth shut. One peep out of you and Kray sinks that knife into his gut.” He pointed at Julian.
Kray hunkered down next to Julian’s inert body and positioned his blade at Julian’s exposed stomach. Her mouth dry from fear and the noisome cloth, Nellie could only nod her acquiescence.
Sir Thaddeus disappeared past the curtain just as the knock was repeated, louder this time. There was a creaking noise as if the door was swinging open, and then Nellie heard Pip’s voice, sharp with shock.
“Father! What the…what are you doing here?”
“I could say the same of you,” Thaddeus
retorted.
“I-I came to speak with Madame Dariya. W-where is she? What have you done with her?”
“You’ve already spoken with the woman. Why did you return?”
“How do you know that? Have you been following me?” Pip’s voice pitched upwards. “Oh my heavens. Is there nothing you won’t do to manipulate me? Why can’t you just leave me be?”
“You’re my heir, the last of the Ormonds. Your wishes are the least of my considerations,” Thaddeus thundered. A thud followed as he kicked over a piece of furniture. “From now on there’ll be no more visits to fortune tellers. You’ll do as I say and marry the Montague girl, and that’s the end of it.”
“It—it’s not the end of it.” The desperation in Pip’s voice made Nellie’s stomach contract. “I have a few questions for you, Father, and I d-demand your answer.”
There was a brief silence. “Oh? And what questions might they be?” Thaddeus asked in a deceptively mild tone.
Pip swallowed audibly. “Nellie’s disappearance and death. D-did you have any part in that?”
“What! What poppycock. Who told you that? I’ll have his guts for garters, I swear.”
“So you deny any involvement in my wife’s d-death?”
Nellie leaned her head back against the table leg and shut her eyes as relief of sorts trickled through her. Pip had just proven he’d known nothing about his father’s plans to get rid of her. Cold comfort now, but it was something to know he hadn’t betrayed her so completely.
“That fortune hunter was not your wife,” Sir Thaddeus said. “You promised yourself to the Montague girl.”
“Only under duress.”
“Why did you come running back to me then as soon as your little gold digger’s back was turned? Answer me that, son.”
“I came to you asking for assistance.”
“And I gave you the best possible assistance. Now you’re free of that tawdry association, you can start behaving like a proper Ormond.”
“A proper Ormond. I see.” Pip’s voice quavered. “And does a proper Ormond discover his wife bleeding and leave her to die alone?”
Fraught silence. Nellie’s legs shifted spasmodically. Across the room Kray bared his teeth at her in a silent snarl.
“Well, Father?” Pip continued. “Why won’t you answer me?”
“Your aspersions don’t deserve an answer.”
“Why? Because they’re true?”
“Because they’re ridiculous,” Sir Thaddeus growled. “You are ridiculous.”
“Me, r-ridiculous? Well, p-perhaps this will alter your mind.”
A strangled gasp of disbelief. “Phillip! No. Put that down—”
“Answer me, Father. Did you murder my mother?”
“Stop this farce, boy. You don’t even know how to fire a pistol. Give that to me, you idiot—”
Scuffling, bumping, furniture knocked over. Two men grappling with each other. Grunts and shouts. Confused and flummoxed, Kray stood irresolute over Julian. Clearly he was hesitant to interfere until told to by his employer.
“No—” A loud explosion severed Thaddeus’s bellow. Something heavy crashed to the floor.
Gripping his knife, Kray charged for the other room. As he rushed past, his hip jarred the table. The lamp, left on the edge, teetered for several moments and fell to the floor. Its glass broke on impact, and oily fluid spilled everywhere, alight, the greasy floor only fuelling the flames further.
From the next room Kray yelled, Pip shrieked, and a second gunshot rang out, followed by another weight toppling over.
“Sweet Jesus, what have I done?” Pip screamed. “Father, are you alive? Speak to me, please.”
Nellie shouted through her gag, stamped her feet and yanked against her bonds, but all her efforts appeared to be for naught. Pip was clearly too distraught to notice anything besides his fallen father, his weeping and keening from the other room drowning out all other sound.
“I’ll get you home, Father,” he wailed. “I won’t leave you here, I promise.”
The shuffling sounds told Nellie that Pip was dragging his father out of the apartment, leaving her and Julian alone, tied up in a burning kitchen. She fought against the cloth stuffed in her mouth, but only choking noises stuttered past her arid, aching throat. In a desperate attempt to make any sort of noise, she pulled at the table but it was too solid, the grime-encrusted legs looking like they’d never been shifted in years.
By now she knew Pip had gone, and it was futile trying to attract his attention. The oil from the lamp burned, licking at the residue of drippings and tallow left on the kitchen floor. A rivulet of fire trickled slowly across the uneven floorboards towards a pile of greasy rags and newspapers mouldering in a far corner. Even as she looked on, the lit stream reached the pile of rubbish, and seconds later a thin trail of smoke spiralled up.
Her heart thumped with growing fear. Suddenly it hit her. Her claws. She could use her claws to cut through the rope tying her hands. Why hadn’t she thought of that earlier? She set to work, but it was not as easy as she’d anticipated. Time and again, instead of rope her claws found her own flesh. After several botched attempts, her wrists were stinging and blood oozed through her fingers, but she could not afford to give up.
On the other side of the kitchen, Julian stirred and groaned. He lifted his head to peer groggily around him, stiffening when he caught sight of her. She tried to give him a reassuring countenance, but his face filled with rage. Struggling to an upright position, he started to shuffle towards her.
At that moment, the pile of rags and newspaper burst into flame. Thick smoke billowed out and swamped the kitchen in seconds. The fire roared and spat like a furious beast. Heat and noxious fumes buffeted Nellie’s face and scorched her lungs. Tamping down her fears, she concentrated on her bonds. Her claws snagged the twine once more, finally sliced through the fibres, and her hands pulled free.
At last. Within seconds she’d wrenched the reeking cloth from her mouth. Out of the acrid smoke, Julian crawled towards her. She cut through his bonds, and together they surveyed the burning kitchen. By now the fire had engulfed a dresser laden with crockery and pots. Flames leaped higher and licked at the crumbling ceiling hungrily. There were no brooms or rakes or any other means of fighting the fire, so by mute accord they turned and stumbled from the smoke.
“My God,” Julian exclaimed as they burst past the curtain into the front room. “Who did that?”
Kray’s mountainous body lay sprawled across the centre of the room. A bloody hole gaped where his face used to be, and he was very dead.
Nausea roiled in the pit of Nellie’s stomach. She stared down at the man who had mutilated her, and she could find not one scrap of pity for him. He’d died instantly, a mercy he hadn’t afforded his own victims. But there was no satisfaction in her, only a deep relief that he would never walk this earth again.
“Pip,” she said to Julian. “He returned, and when he saw his father here, confronted him about my disappearance and the death of his mother. He had a gun.”
Julian grunted. “I didn’t think he had it in him.”
“He shot his father and then Kray.” She shivered at the memory. “I think Thaddeus is still alive, as Pip took him away.”
Julian gazed down grimly at Kray’s corpse as if he regretted not being the one to mete out justice, but the roaring fire behind them left them no time to linger. They ran out and hammered on the doors of the other apartments to rouse the inhabitants. Soon a huddle of anxious people gathered out in the street while others ran to alert the fire brigade.
Julian and Nellie slipped away from the commotion and made their way to the back of the house where their horses were pawing restlessly, made uneasy by the fire. Working swiftly, Julian untied the horses, helped Nellie into her saddle, mounted his own horse, then led them down the alley and away from the house at a swift pace. Half a mile later, he reached for her reins and pulled them both to a halt.
“Wait, you’re bleedi
ng,” he said as he manoeuvred his horse closer. Frowning, he held up her hands for inspection.
“’Tis my own clumsiness when cutting my bonds,” she said ruefully. “I haven’t fully mastered my claws yet.”
Still frowning, he tore off a strip of his shirt and bound her cuts. “My loathing for Thaddeus put you in terrible danger, Nellie. I could have easily overpowered both him and Kray if I’d only held my temper and not attacked so rashly. It is a deep flaw of mine, to charge in recklessly without due consideration.”
“Oh, but to me it is not a flaw at all. Quite the opposite.” She gazed at his dirty, smoke-streaked face. Bruises and swellings had begun to make their mark on him, but all she could see was valour and strength. “You are worth ten generations of Ormonds. Why you would want Sir Thaddeus’s acknowledgement is a mystery to me.”
He smiled a little. “I’m also a stubborn cove. It’s not recognition from Thaddeus I want, only the details surrounding my birth.”
“If he dies of his wounds, you may never get your wish.”
His smile faded. A biting breeze blew down the street, sifting the piles of refuse across the gutters. “And you, Nellie? Tonight did not exactly go according to plan. Did you still get your wish?”
Tonight something otherworldly had happened to her, something beyond the realms of rational explanation. The memory of her acting as though possessed by Pip’s dead mother brought a deathly shiver to her. She couldn’t explain her behaviour and did not even want to discuss it, so she merely replied, “I’m satisfied that Pip knew nothing about his father’s plot.”
She paused, and Julian added, “But?”
“But there are other questions unanswered.”
His expression grew withdrawn. “You wish to speak with him face to face,” he said flatly.
For the first time she became aware she was not wearing her veil. She’d not worn it while she and Julian were rousing the neighbours, nor when they’d gathered in the street. Darkness and urgency had distracted attention from her face, though she recalled a few askance looks directed her way. But she would not be deterred. She had worn that veil for the last time. She had nothing to be ashamed of, and she was tired of hiding in the shadows. It was time to step out into the daylight.