by Viola Carr
Craggy old Underwood halted in the stage wings, at the foot of a huge red velvet curtain. He pointed with his stick at a rickety iron ladder that climbed the wall on metal pins, stretching upwards into the dark. “Rafters. Lads swinging about like gibbons, eh?” His top hat slipped down over his eyes. He fumbled it back, and wandered off, muttering, “Watch out for rodents. Hungry critters, size of small dogs. They spread madness, you know.”
“Apparently,” murmured Eliza. She peered up the ladder and glanced down at her skirts.
Lafayette was already grinning.
She eyed him sternly. “Don’t even say it.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“Why don’t you wait down here, Doctor?” Griffin suggested. “I’ll call if I need you.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Briskly, she tugged her satchel tighter over her shoulder. “Wait here, Hipp. After you, gentlemen, please.”
“Wait here,” agreed Hippocrates eagerly, and folded his legs with a happy whir! of cogs.
“Good dog.” Lafayette vaulted up the ladder, climbing swiftly. Griffin followed. Eliza gripped the highest rung she could reach, and started to climb.
The air grew warmer, the light dim. The curtain beside her grew dustier. Ropes creaked, wind whistled in the roof above. From the stage below, piano music rippled, the bright notes of a pas de deux. The ladder creaked under the combined weight of three. Her heartbeat quickened. She fought not to grip the rungs too tightly. Don’t look down. Don’t look down . . .
Lizzie giggled, and clapped invisible hands. Whee hee! Now here’s some fun . . .
“Landing,” called Lafayette from above.
Sure enough, after a few more rungs, a narrow wooden platform stretched along the wall, where a dozen ropes were wrapped onto a rack of belaying pins, like those on a ship’s deck. The web of ropes stretched out over the stage, echoing the spider’s weavings on Underwood’s hat. Curtain ropes, plus others holding scenery and lighting arrays that swung over the stage on wooden beams.
Eliza dusted off her hands and peered downwards. Her vision swam. Why was she always compelled to look down? Twenty feet at least to the stage, where dancers twirled and stretched to the music. Nothing to stop you from falling. She craned her neck upwards, pushing back her spectacles. In the dim light, she could just make out criss-crossing rafters, disappearing into the gloom.
“There’s another level.” Griffin squinted up, resting his hand on the next ladder. “This Geordie must be a veritable monkey . . . I say, who’s there? Stop, man—oof!”
Griffin stumbled. Lafayette swore. A shadow slipped by, just a blur, too fast to see, and something hard banged into Eliza’s shoulder.
She overbalanced, arms waving, and the earth beneath her dropped away.
Her stomach shriveled. She flailed desperately but caught nothing but air . . . and then wumph! A hanging beam slammed into her chest. A bone in her corset snapped, and she clung there like a barnacle in billowing skirts.
The beam swung wildly to and fro, creaking under her weight, and at one end, the knot holding the rope began to unravel. Oh, bother.
She heard Griffin cursing. Lafayette scrambled to the landing’s edge. “Hold on, Eliza. Don’t let go!”
“Wasn’t planning on it . . . uh!”
The beam swung again. The sharp edge of a light fixture dug painfully into her upper arms. Something fell from her satchel, hit the stage and smashed. Somewhere below, Hippocrates squealed and screeched, “Danger! Danger!”
Her arms ached with fatigue, weakening. Her heart lurched, sick. Don’t look down. Don’t . . .
Dizzy depths, swirling into blackness.
Her grip slipped, and Lizzie yowled like an angry cat. Pull yourself together, girl. You’ll not get rid of me like this. Climb!
Gritting her teeth, Eliza heaved herself up. But her muscles must have turned to water while she wasn’t watching, because her arms just strained uselessly. The beam swung wildly, banging against the landing, and her spectacles dislodged and fell into nothing.
Wonderful, snarled Lizzie. Climb, you useless mopsy, or I’ll climb for you.
And the familiar, raw sickness clutched at Eliza’s guts. Her pulse cartwheeled. Not now . . . not now!
But her muscles spasmed, a shuddering cramp of pain and pleasure, and bright electric rage raced along Eliza’s nerves. It was her, Lizzie, it’s me, me, you stupid girl, are you so afraid that you can’t even save your own life?
My face is quivering beneath hers, like the real face under a mask. My skin’s juddering, my hair’s springing alive, desperate to escape, to change. That Captain Lafayette is leaning over the edge and his knowing gaze meets mine, a stinging blur of color, her eyes and mine and hers again and I can’t breathe and I can’t think and God fucking help us if this happens now.
“Eliza! Give me your hand!” He’s barely holding on while he reaches out to me. One hand gripping a rope, the other teetering above nothing, Captain Smart-Pants Lafayette of the god-rotted Royal in his scarlet coat and oh-so-pretty chestnut curls, only there ain’t nothing pretty or weak about him now. There’s fire in those heaven-blue eyes, fire and hatred and screw-it-all defiance that lights a familiar flame in my heart.
He knows pain, this golden soldier-boy. He knows death, and today, death’s picked the wrong man to screw with.
The ancient knot at the beam’s end slips some more—who tied this bleeding thing anyway, Noah?—and I grab the wood and haul my body up, up, hand over hand. My muscles screech at me, whining like pampered babies, but they can just shut the hell up or die, and Lafayette strains for my hand and his knuckles bang mine and finally, his big fingers clamp my wrist like a Newgate shackle and don’t let go.
My elbow wrenches. The beam tries to swing back, away, yanking my shoulder joint apart, a white-hot spike of ouch. Lafayette heaves, and I let the beam go and come flying onto the landing, ker-bang! into a knot of tangled skirts and pounding pulse and holy Jesus, I’m still alive.
I lie panting on my back, sweating. The beam crashes to the stage, bang! Glass shatters. A girl down there screams. Eliza screams, clawing at my face, struggling inside me, over me, through me, our skin crawls and our guts twist into knots and I writhe and fight and open my mouth to yell . . .
Air rushed into Eliza’s lungs, and she jerked upright.
Her heart galloped, her breath in deep gasps. Her bodice was soaked with sweat. Her stomach ached, her insides felt weak and stretched, as if someone had wrung her out to dry. But Lizzie was gone.
For now.
“Are you hurt, Doctor?” Lafayette scrambled up beside her.
She let him haul her to her feet. Her legs shook. She gripped the wall for balance and pushed him away, catching her breath. “Just a little shaken.”
“Pleased to hear it.”
She blinked, short-sighted. She’d have to fetch her spare spectacles from home. She dusted off her dress. A bone in her corset had snapped. She’d have to get it mended. “What hit me? One minute I was standing there, the next . . .”
“Our glocky-sticked Geordie, presumably.” He regarded her strangely. As if he’d never seen her before.
Her throat crisped. Had Lizzie . . . come out? Had her face changed, her hair? “What? Kindly stop staring, sir.”
That flashlamp smile. “So that’s what your eyes look like.”
She arched stern brows. “Hardly the need to fling me from a landing to discover that . . . Goodness, Harley, you’re bleeding!”
Griffin lay on the landing, clutching his side. His hat had rolled into a dusty corner. Blood oozed between his fingers. “Are you all right, Doctor?”
“Never mind me. What happened?” She knelt and peeled his fingers away. More blood gushed.
Griffin clenched his teeth. “The little rat stabbed me. I’m all right. Don’t fuss.”
“Hush. I’m a doctor, it’s my job to fuss.”
Lafayette peered over the landing’s edge, sniffing the dark air. “We
ll, the little rat’s gone now.”
“Wonderful.” Griffin tried to get up.
“Not a chance. Let me look.” Eliza eased his bloody shirt aside and poked her nose close so she could see. A glance along the flesh below his ribs: not deep, but it looked painful.
“You’re growing thin, Harley,” she said brusquely as she folded a swab from her satchel over the wound and pressed his hand over it. “Hold here. You work too hard, you know,” she added without thinking, and immediately wished she hadn’t. She wasn’t the only one who threw herself into her work to avoid thinking about other, darker things.
“Physician, heal thyself,” muttered Griffin. “I’ll live.”
“Foiled again.” Lafayette hopped onto the second ladder and started to climb. “Shall we see what our knife-happy idiot is hiding?”
Eliza glanced after him, then back. “I need to stitch this, Harley.”
“I shan’t bleed to death.” Griffin waved her ahead. “Don’t let him mess it up. And try not to fall off this time.”
Casually, Eliza rearranged her satchel, and when Griffin wasn’t looking, she swiftly pulled out a phial of remedy and took a gulp. Warmth flushed from her belly to the top of her head. Sweat dampened her skin. She wanted to squirm, to press her legs together. How undignified.
Her stomach boiled, indignant, as if the substance wasn’t welcome there. Strange. This last batch of mixture tasted different. Spicier, stronger. Had Marcellus changed the formula without telling her?
Defiant, she gulped a second mouthful, tucked the phial away, and followed Lafayette into the dark.
Cobwebs crawled over her face, dry skeletal fingers. She brushed them away, shivering. Don’t look down. Don’t . . . Another landing loomed, the ladder leading through a hole cut in wooden boards. She grabbed Lafayette’s hand and let him help her to her feet.
She popped the switch on her little aether-powered electric light, and the coil buzzed and bloomed, throwing a bright ring against the dusty wall.
The landing was about ten feet square, small enough to make her swallow and shuffle away from the edge. A blanket lay heaped in the corner on a tatty straw cushion. Atop the bedding sat a dirt-smeared brown felt rabbit, one solitary ear flopping over its face, a leg and one eye missing.
Along the wall, above a splintery trestle table, stretched a row of rusted electrical levers. The hinges were coated in corrosion and dust bunnies. Electrical potential buzzed amid the faint stink of burned aether.
Someone below threw a switch somewhere, and goose pimples sprang on her arms, her hair standing on end. Her coil flickered and burned brighter, absorbing the power.
Lafayette cocked his eyebrow. “Is that thing certified?”
He knew it was. They both knew it was. Her nerves were still wound tight like a fishing reel, from the fall and from Lizzie’s sudden strength. Lizzie had never forced through on her own like that before . . .
. . . and if he looks at me like that again, I’ll kick his pretty arse, Lizzie whispered slyly.
“So arrest me,” snapped Eliza. The remedy hadn’t worked. Lizzie was still right there, just beneath the surface . . .
“Perhaps I shall.” Lafayette didn’t drop his sky-blue scrutiny. “There’s more to you than is evident, Dr. Jekyll.”
She shivered, angry snakes still wriggling in the pit of her stomach. Her yearning was unsettling, unconscionable. To laugh like a madwoman, twirl until her skirts flew out like pinwheels, scream to “hell with it,” and just change . . .
“Oh, I don’t think so, Captain,” she said lightly. “You give me too much credit. I’m insufferably dull when you get to know me.”
“Mmm. You’re rather good at this, aren’t you?”
“What’s that?”
“Lying.” His gaze didn’t drop. It burned, certain. Indefatigable. Whatever he’d meant, it wasn’t an insult.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’m glad you’re on the side of the law. You’d make a formidable murderer.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. And I’ll thank you to cease your unseemly behavior, sir. You are far too forward.” She spun away, cheeks aflame. Her remedy was failing. What would she do without it? The urges would strengthen inside her, a poison vine taking root, she’d hunger and thirst and want until her skin burned and her blood screamed and she couldn’t hold Lizzie inside any longer . . . and then . . .
And then . . . what? She couldn’t go out in public, not with Lizzie about to pop out at any moment. She’d have to stay indoors. Become a recluse, like her father, his wits rotting inexorably away, going slowly mad in his laboratory while the world forgot him . . .
She sucked in a deep breath. Ridiculous. A moment of panic, that was all. She’d nearly fallen to her death. Completely understandable. She’d talk to Marcellus. He’d alter the formula, make her remedy stronger, more reliable. No need for dramatics.
In the meantime? Joking about it with Lafayette was a very bad idea.
So that’s what your eyes look like, he’d said. But whose did he mean?
“Eh? What?” She shook herself back to reality.
“I said, come look at this.” Lafayette was fingering through a pile of clutter on the trestle table. “Our Geordie’s a collector.”
She peered, blinking, wishing for her spectacles, and held her light closer. Ribbons, fabric scraps, sequins, feathers . . . “Pieces from the girls’ costumes?”
“And pieces of girls.” Lafayette showed her the broken-off bottom of a glass bottle. Fingernail clippings, still sporting flecks of pink paint. Locks of hair, carefully tied with string. Different colors, blondes, brunettes, a redhead. “I don’t see any feet in this collection. Rather less ambitious.”
Eliza wrinkled her nose. “I can test those samples, see if any belong to Miss Pavlova. Or to Miss Ophelia, for that matter.”
She angled her light further. A shard of looking-glass sat upright on the table. Beside it, a comb, scissors, an old razor. Her shoulder brushed Lafayette’s coat, and inside her, warm shadows stirred and sighed . . .
She jerked back. He’d see her. Smell her, with that sensitive nose of his . . .
“Vanity?” she suggested calmly, though her pulse skipped.
“Lysander’s wife said he was a good-looking boy. It could be part of his method. Ladies do such wild things for a handsome face.”
Warm steel in her palm, deft artist’s fingers on her cheek, a single drop of blood. “Let me show you . . .”
“Do they?” she asked tightly. “I’m sure I wouldn’t be so foolish.”
His smile twinkled. “Don’t shoot. I surrender.”
She flicked dust from pressed flowers, ribbons, old makeup pots scraped clean. “So what do you make of this jumble?”
He ruffled his chestnut hair. “Treasure.”
“Hmm?”
“Everyone has keepsakes. Trivial things that mean the world. Pitiful, isn’t it? A man reduced to locks of hair and nail clippings.”
“That sounds like the observation of experience, Captain.” She flipped casually through the items with her tweezers. “Were you truly a detective in India? Or did you invent that to impress Underwood?”
He laughed. “Nothing so fascinating. I was a hunter. Disappointingly commonplace.”
“What, no romantic tales of dashing piratical exploits? One immediately suspects you of hiding something.”
“Maybe I’m just being mysterious and seductive.”
“Mmm. Half a victory to you, then. You’ve piqued my curiosity, at least. I imagine you stalking through the jungle wearing a safari suit and pith helmet, brandishing muskets and blunderbusses and taking pot-shots at anything that twitches. A hunter of what, pray? Tigers and nabobs?”
He measured her, a piercing probe of blue. “Of treasure, at first,” he conceded. “The conventional kind. Gold and silver, lost cities, the overflowing jewel chests of despots and thieves.” He made a mock bow. “Captain Lafayette of the East India Company, se
eker of fame and fortune in darkest Bengal, scourge of villains and honest men both.”
“Now that I can believe.”
“Everyone’s young and stupid once.” He poked at a dried rose pinned to the wall, agitated, as if he were compelled to speak. “As I said: commonplace. Then the Rebellion happened, and overnight our happy little slave colony exploded into a lawless zoo. Enter Captain Lafayette, bounty-hunter.”
Rebellion, he’d said. Not mutiny. “And then what? Why return to England?”
He rubbed his wrist, that odd silver-sealed bracelet she’d noticed the first time they met glinting in her lamp’s light. Was it a memento? A lucky talisman? How unscientific.
“Wanted men hide in evil places,” he explained. “Bloodthirsty holes where the demons that devour us are made real. I encountered things I’d never believed existed. It . . . changed me.”
Well, that was obvious. She’d already met two Lafayettes, the flirt and the fighter. If she dug deeper—slid under his skin, slow and careful like a warm needle—would she discover another?
“For the better, I trust.”
He shrugged. “If you wallow in filth long enough, it stops washing off. I’d seen enough. I had to leave.”
His tone clanged, a tell-tale discord of untruth, and the compulsion to pry itched like a growth in her belly. The very devil in scarlet. Lizzie’s whisper drifted back to her, colored afresh with rosy intrigue . . . and on its heels, Mr. Todd in Bethlem, watching Lafayette with that mischievous twinkle in his eyes. Hello, shadow.
She shivered, a ghostly chill shifting on the air. She should let it alone. Before she exposed things best left buried . . .
“And now you hunt heretics for the Royal? An odd career choice, for a man who believes in demons.”
“I believe in what I can see, madam. Believe me, some creatures deserve to be hunted.” Lafayette poked at a jar of dried black greasepaint and wrinkled his nose. “Well, if this is our love-letter killer, I don’t see any ink or paper. Or books, for that matter.”