The Diabolical Miss Hyde

by Viola Carr

  Fire explodes in my belly. I shudder, delight spreading along my limbs as if I just . . . well, never you mind. I just want more, again, forever, molten gold and flame, bitter chemical oblivion. God’s innards, this stuff’ll be the death of me, like it’s murdered so many others, cold-blooded and relentless as any razor-glitter lunatic, only you won’t make no front-page story drinking yourself to ruin.

  We’re all hurtling towards death. Some of us just run faster.

  “Lizzie, my darlin’.” Wild Johnny waves a sloshing gin bottle in my direction. Already bright-eyed with booze—or is he?—he stumbles against the bar beside me, and rights himself with a rakish bow that’d charm a lesser woman’s corset off. “You flay me. Your radiance is more than I can bear. Let’s get drunk and misbehave.”

  “If you’re buying, I’m in.”

  “Naturally, madam. What do you take me for, some ha’penny sneak thief with no class?” He plonks the bottle on the bar and lets out a happy burp. “I’ll have you know I’m the classiest gent in this bar.”

  “Too right. A ten-quid sneak thief is what you is. Nothing but the best.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  But my stomach knots, spoiling my high, and for the first time, his suggestive rosy scent squirms tiny roots of threat into my veins. I might have teased Eliza with what we done, but truth is? I were deep in my cups t’other night. I don’t right remember what went on, only that Johnny and me was sharing gin and laudanum, and he kissed me and it tasted of sadness, and something about his pretty hair and then Eliza woke up on the cushions, alone.

  Damn it. Eliza would scold me for a fool. And for once, she’d be right.

  We clink cups and swallow, and he feints at me with his flirtiest grin. He’s wearing a different coat, a long dusty blue one, and too late I remember Eliza took the other. Shoulda brought it back. Shoulda left a lot of things the way they was.

  But Johnny ain’t never so plastered—nor so vague—as he makes out. He studies me with crooked black eyes and scratches behind one pointed ear like a puppy, his tangled hair flopping. “What?”

  My skin itches. I ain’t got time for about-last-night. I need to quiz him about Jemima, find out what the hell happened to Billy Beane.

  Because I ain’t right sure about that, neither, despite what Eliza might think. I like gin, for sure. But I never claimed it for my friend, and like a treacherous lover it keeps secrets from me.

  I sigh. “Look. Um . . . what happened, t’other night? You and me, I mean.”

  He licks his teeth, considering. “What do you want to have happened?”

  Jesus, Johnny. Why you gotta be so damned nice? “How about . . . we wiped ourselves clean on laudanum, and passed out?”

  A loose-limbed fey shrug. “Then that’s what happened.”

  Is he lying? Did his gaze slip? I’m too damn tired and antsy to know. I gulp another gin and snort. “Yeah, well, while we was busy not happening, your bloody squeeze turned snout, didn’t she?”

  His warm gaze crackles over with frost. “What?”

  “Jemima told the crushers I did for Billy Beane.”

  “Did you? What a shame. Sounds like a win all round to me.”

  “That’s as may be, but I ain’t swinging for something I never done.” I lean over both elbows on the bar, and glance sideways and back again before I lower my voice. “Billy was a crusher’s moll. They can’t let it go unpunished. They’ll find someone to blame. You have to help me, Johnny.”

  And I know he will.

  I play with him. I use him. I break his lonesome heart. But I know in my crusty black soul that this sweet-natured lad won’t never let me down.

  Johnny, God love him, is my friend. And more fool he.

  My eyes burn, and I blink them clear.

  Johnny shrugs again and drops his voice, too, that practiced criminal’s murmur that carries over flash house noise, but only to the person it’s meant for. “You asked me where Billy was, then I never seen you for maybe a quarter hour. That’s it. Don’t know anything more.”

  “And you heard nothing?” I demand softly. “No hue and cry? Weren’t no blood, nothing like that?”

  “Nope. You had dirt on your dress and a bruise on your forehead. I figured you walked into something. You know how bloodthirsty doorways can be around here.”

  I frown, poking my foggy memory for what I do recall. The yard, damp night air on my bare thighs, stinky Billy a-fumble under my skirts. Greedy steel murmuring in my hand . . . and wumph!

  Distant pain swells my forehead, an echo of injury past, and a ghostly green shadow blots out my breath.

  My mind reels like a drunken fiddler. “Someone came into the yard and hit me,” I blurt out. “Not Billy. Someone else. They must’ve seen something.”

  “Well, it weren’t Jemima,” says Johnny. “Not while you was out back. She and I held a short but fiery palaver. I’m ashamed to say that bad words were spoken.” He tugged his hair, sheepish. “Such is love.”

  “But the crushers still think I done it.” I slam twin fists on the bar, dazzled like winter sunshine with fresh anger. “Jemima better keep her eyes peeled for me.”

  Johnny slops more gin into my cup and swills his own. “Be easy on her,” he says, but a shadow over his voice tells me Jemima better look out for him, too. “She might be glocky, but she’s not blind.”

  “Thought you said nothing happened.” But my face feels hot, and it ain’t no virgin blush. I could snaffle Jemima’s fancy man in an eye-blink, and don’t she know it. I’d have done the same as her, if some uppity skirt were sniffing her snotty nose around my bloke. In Seven Dials, a girl fights for what’s hers, or in a twinkle it ain’t hers no more.

  “You said nothing happened. Can’t speak for what ’Mima thinks.” Johnny edges closer, a sly thief’s glide. “But I’ve a thing that might interest you, so I do.”

  “Oh, aye? What’d that be?”

  He unfolds one long-fingered hand. In his palm lies a pocket watch. Mother-of-pearl face and black hands, dirt crusted around its dented silver rim.

  I squint, puzzled. “A cheap ticker? You shouldn’t have.”

  “A ticker, cheap,” agrees Johnny airily. “Recently belonging to Billy the loudly lamented Bastard. Passed on to me this morning—in good faith, naturally, the fellow must’ve dropped it, these things happen all the time—by my fine friend . . .” He sighs artfully. “Well, perhaps you ain’t interested after all. Let me buy you another gin, sweet ruby Lizzie, and we’ll wallow the night away in decadence and gay abandon.”

  His suggestion is too alluring. Too tempting, when you’re drowning, to scream damn it all and sink to your death.

  But I need to swim. To stay sober, or thereabouts. Because Eliza needs me.

  Fancy that.

  Secret starlight warms my heart. I’m used to being the dark half, the beast in the closet, the mad wife in the attic with fleas in her hair. But Eliza needs me now. And screw me raw if I’ll let her down.

  I’m teetering on a precipice, breathless on the brink of a chasm of dark unknown. And it feels . . .

  I clear my throat. Hell, we’ve only got one body between us, right? If the crushers bone Miss Lizzie, it’ll be Doctor Eliza in the Bow Street lock-up come morning, and from there it’ll be questions and fists and a swift bumpy ride to the Tower, courtesy of the god-rotting Royal. Even Eliza’s hoity-toity detective friend can’t help us, once they tumble to what we is.

  If they burn her, I’m just as dead. Right?

  I sigh and pull out a golden sovereign, let it catch the light.

  Johnny’s smile gleams. He makes the coin vanish—no, really—and now the watch is gone, too, into his pocket or up his sleeve or who knows where. I catch a flowery whiff of spelldust.

  “Sally Fingers,” says he.

  “The moll buzz?” I know her, by reputation at least. Half the trick in picking pockets—especially ladies’ pockets—is looking as if you belong, and it ain’t only the lads who go out square
-rigged with the swell mob.

  “The very same. Seems you wasn’t the only one after a slice of Billy’s hide that night.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  He shrugs, as if that particular piece of gossip is beneath him, and drinks. “Ask her yourself. She’s working the Strand tonight with Jimmy the Chink.”

  “I’ll do that.” I drain my cup, bang it down, stretch my neck with a crunch! Time for a nice evening stroll. Little Sally Fingers better ’fess up quick, for Miss Lizzie and her shiny steel sister ain’t feeling patient tonight.

  “Lizzie? Can I ask you something?”

  And here it comes.

  “I already told you,” I grumble for cover, “I ain’t marrying your sorry fairy arse.”

  “And right sorry my fairy arse is for it, too. But not that.” Johnny’s lopsided gaze is shrewd again, sharper than the gin he’s swilling should allow. Not for the first time, I’m envious. Sweet lord, the lad can put it away, only Johnny drinks because he can, not because he must. “A lady came looking for Jemima yesterday. Pretty yellow hair, in a gray dress. Don’t suppose you know aught of that?”

  Foggy memory haunts me, shadows behind glass. Don’t I know you, lady? And then he’d turfed brave Eliza into the street, out of harm’s way.

  Protected her, when he could’ve fleeced her for every bright thing she carried and dumped her in a gutter for the rats.

  Does sweet Johnny wonder where I go? Where I vanish to, for days or weeks on end, never to be seen? Then all of a moment I’m back, swilling gin and flirting like no time has passed at all.

  And then Eliza shows up, a creature of sunshine with shadows in her heart—with me in her heart, chewing around like a specter hungry for souls—and Johnny’s delicate fey senses light up like fireworks.

  He knew her.

  Shit.

  I shrug, faking like I don’t care, but cold spiders scuttle down my spine. “Nope. Why?”

  “Thought I made her face, is all.” He shrugs again. “Maybe some lady I tooled over once.”

  “Aye. Some copper’s fakement, most like.”

  “Most like.” He watches me a breath longer, then jerks his head towards the door. “Get on with you, you’ll miss Sally.”

  I bite my lip. He don’t have to believe my lies. “Johnny?”

  “Mmm?”

  So many things I ought to say. Tell him some lie about Eliza, shake him off this dangerous scent. Tell him to go home, buy Jemima a trinket or a new dress, take her to bed and forget about me, because I can’t never be his, not when I’m only half a person and the lesser half at that.

  Tell him the truth. If one man in this ugly world would stand by Miss Lizzie through anything . . .

  Or even just say I’m sorry.

  But I ain’t. Miss Lizzie ain’t sorry, any more than she’s sober. And somehow, that stings sharpest of all.

  I muster a grin, and my cheeks ache with the lie. “Thanks for the gin.” And I walk out before he can reply.

  The streets are black and grimy, thick with smoke and the expectant scent of a storm. Shadows leap and snigger down dark alleyways and beneath the eaves of crooked tenements, and the unseen moon drags a swell of excitement from my blood. The outdoor air feeds the fire in my soul, and I sink comfortably into my skin. That aching stab of conscience seems a distant dream.

  I skip a few steps and twirl, my skirts fanning out. My stiletto murmurs and winks against my thigh. I realize I’m laughing, wild and high-pitched laughter like a madwoman’s, and I cover my mouth to make it stop.

  When you change, like us, the moon calls to you, and like that old Greek bastard in Razor Jack’s painting—what’s-’is-name, the cove who sailed his ship past the Sirens—if you don’t rope yourself to the mast and stuff beeswax in your ears, you’ll jump to your death.

  Bittersweet fever licks me a-shiver inside, but it ain’t me who shivers at the thought of him. It’s Eliza, and her secret, wistful dreams.

  God help her. Miss Lizzie likes a challenge, so she does, and I admit I ain’t averse to a tasty slice of forbidden fruit. But when it comes to that bloodthirsty red-haired loon, it’s Eliza who’s blind. I’ve told her often enough—screamed at her, Jesus, that razor blade against her cheek I won’t soon forget—but she don’t listen. It’s as if she don’t even hear.

  I know what Todd is, see. The Greek bloke in the painting was the clue, tied to the mast with that heartbroken look in his eyes.

  Mr. Todd is what happens when you jump.

  Or if you fall.

  I stride through the barrows and rickety stalls of Covent Garden Market, dodging jugglers and fish-sellers and fey-faced fire-eaters, children selling piles of bread crusts, old fruit, pans of dripping, eel skins they’ve scrounged from middens. The rotten stink invigorates me. This place I know. This place I understand. Prostitutes wink and swagger in dirty skirts, buttons undone and poxy flesh on show. In a corner, two greasy blokes are kicking a third bloke senseless, blood and teeth in the mud. Somewhere, an accordion plays a raucous Irish tune, and a pair of dwarves in little frock coats and top hats dance a tipsy jig.

  Cold fingers whisper over my shoulder.

  I whirl, fierce. No one. No pickpocket, no lumbering fey idiot with a sloppy grin and a magic trick, no greasy customer who thinks I’m for sale.

  Only shadows, and the smell of thunder.

  But my breath is tight. My senses scintillate like angry fireflies. I can’t help feeling that someone’s following me.

  “Follow away, whoever you are,” I mutter, and stride on, skirts flouncing. I’ve got business tonight.

  The Strand is a dark throng of carriages and omnibuses, electric lights glittering bright amongst gas lamps and torches. Horses snort and kick in their harnesses, disturbed by the relentless tick of clockwork. It’s only early, and shop windows shine like wreckers’ beacons through the dark, their fashionable wares luring folk to ruin. Well-dressed gents and their ladies promenade up and down, snotty noses in the air.

  A line of god-rotted clockwork Enforcers strut along the middle of the street, and everyone makes way for them as if they’ve got the Black Death. Boxy brass soldiers, their gemstone eyes a-glint. More of ’em every week, the way things is. One pulls a big brass cage on wheels, and inside it, a skinny fey girl lies sobbing and howling. But Enforcers don’t never listen or show mercy. Whatever spellwork she’s done, it ain’t helping her now.

  Compelled, I scrape up a handful of horse dung and hurl it at them. “Nice work, chaps,” I yell. “The streets sure is safer now. I feel so much better.”

  They don’t stop. One turns its blank white face to look at me. I give it a rude gesture. Its red eyes flash, and it turns away once more.

  “Heh,” I mutter, hot-faced at my own stupidity but still feeling good. “Shows what you know.”

  I make my way through the clatter, keeping a sharp eye. The crowd is massive, surely I’ll never find Sally Fingers amongst this lot, but in truth it don’t take me long to single her out. I’ve an eye for the swell mob, so I do. I know their formations, one in front, one behind, a lookout off to the side, and here’s Tom o’ Nine Lives and Jimmy the Chink, sailing along in fine coats and cravats, nice as you please. Jimmy’s even got a cane, and he flourishes it like a dandy, tipping his ridiculously tall hat to some simpering lady, who eyes his dusky half-Oriental skin and practically pops a rivet in her corset.

  A yard or two away in the crush ambles a thin woman in a pale green dress and matching hat. She’s familiar. Sharp nose, pinched face, long hands in lace gloves. Greasepaint is plastered over a blight of pox scars on her cheek.

  Sally Fingers, moll buzz and Beane-thief extraordinaire.

  Tom o’ Nine Lives—so called because with that handsome face, he can talk his way out of anything—Tom halts abruptly, peering into a window, and the lady behind bumps into him.

  She stumbles, her creamy crinoline bouncing. Handsome Tom apologizes, so sorry, madam, forgive me, la-di-da. And light as a brothel girl’s
feather, Sally Fingers lifts the purse from madam’s belt and passes it to Jimmy the Chink, whereupon they each drift off into the crowd in different directions, while Tom’s still steadying blushing madam’s elbow.

  Simple, but it pays. I ease into the crush and fall into step beside Sally. “Nice pull.”

  Sally spears me on a leaf-green glance, but she’s too experienced a hand to reply. She ain’t pretty or clever. Ain’t even fey. Just a girl, faded brown hair twisted up under her fancy hat, and I can see the ragged ends where she’s once hacked it off, to sell or to rid herself of lice. She smells of stolen perfume, a rich lady’s scent.

  “I ain’t no snout, Sally Fingers. Wild Johnny sent me.”

  “Who?” Casually, she gazes around, like we’re not talking. Informants are everywhere. You never know who’s watching, or what they’ll tell they seen.

  “Billy Beane’s watch. You fenced it on Johnny this morning.”

  “Was that Billy’s? Well, I never. I picked it up out of the dirt. Sold it fair and square.” She smiles, nods at some imaginary acquaintance, glances in a window. Changes her story without a blink.

  “And now Billy’s dead.”

  “Is he? Hadn’t heard. Cholera, was it?”

  “Oh, I think you heard.” I link arms with her, easy, two friends on an evening stroll. “He’s murdered, Sally. Stabbed in the neck like the bag of offal he was. But you knew that.”

  “Don’t know what you’re on about.”

  She pulls away, stiff. But I squeeze her forearm hard enough to grate the bones. “Word is that Billy was on your shit list. What, did he shove his hand up your skirt?”

  “None of your damn business—”

  “I think you killed him, Sally Fingers. Stabbed him and left him dead in the dirt. What do you say to that?”

  “Don’t know nothing.” She struggles, wild. “I seen you that night. You’re the skirt from the Cockatrice. Lemme ’lone, okay?”