by Viola Carr
“Trickier when the patient’s alive,” added Will, “but still, one adapts and overcomes.” And he ushered her towards dead Lucy and the glistening operating table.
“Let go!” She struggled. No use. This beast-Will had a grip like a brass Enforcer. Lightning erupted, brain-rattling, and blue current crackled around the dome’s rim. The floor quaked. Will paid no heed. When he reached the table, he bent to lift her . . .
Eliza rammed her knee into his groin.
He retched and staggered. She whirled and ran.
And collided with a tough-muscled body.
Mr. Todd trapped her in front of him, one warm arm around her waist. “Let’s re-evaluate, shall we, William?”
Shock trickled ice water into her blood. Her heart pounded. How had he gotten free? Lafayette still struggled on the bench in his leather casing, but a wry smile turned his lips. A few feet away on the floor, next to Mr. Todd’s unlocked shackles, lay a twisted sliver of dark metal.
A hair pin.
Her skin tingled with reluctant, black admiration. That lamp-lit book room, his fingers brushing her waist, the spidery walk of his breath across her loosened hair . . .
He’d wanted the pin. The rest of that tragic little scene? Academic. A tease. A lie.
Behind her, she felt him smile. She didn’t need to see. She just knew.
She’d never get out of here alive.
Will coughed, sucking in his breath at last. His yellow eyes burned in jealous rage. “Give her back. Eliza, my love, come to me.”
“Oh, I think not,” remarked Todd carelessly. His grip on her waist shifted, and a metallic chill sparkled against her throat.
It warmed rapidly with her body heat. With a sinking stomach, she risked a glance at the plate of surgical instruments. One was missing. Not the scalpel. The long-bladed knife.
Irony choked her. One makes do, after all. Trust me, he’d said.
How she’d wanted to believe him.
“Here we are at last.” Todd licked his lips, that tiny provocative sound. His scent—so many velvet memories—made her shiver and burn. “I confess, I’ve often dreamed about this. Since you kindly turned me over to your energetic friends at the Met, that is. And just when we were getting on so well.”
Her primeval brain screeched nonsense. Run! Scream! Fight! Roll over! But none of it would save her. Not from him.
Or from herself.
But her breath hurt her chest, and she swallowed. She wasn’t ready to die. “I had no choice.”
Todd inhaled delicately, smelling her storm-damp hair. “Mmm. That’s not true. You said unkind things about me, Eliza. A lesser man might want revenge.”
“No!” Will’s eyes glistened with tears, and he fumbled for his pistol. Long claws juddered from his thumbs, curling around the iron grip. His voice dived in pitch, a lisping growl. “It isn’t fair. You can’t have her. Not after all this. You promised. Give her back!”
“Don’t be needy, William,” scolded Todd. “It only makes you ugly and irritating. Come, we all know you won’t shoot me. Especially not while I’m holding such a valuable shield.”
Will cursed and clutched the pistol tighter. Sweat poured into patches of fur on his face. His nose had distorted into an inhuman snout with teeth curving up like tusks. “Don’t make me angry, Mr. Todd,” he snarled, a rain of spit flying. “Don’t make me become this thing. Please, I just want her back. Give her to me.”
Todd clicked his tongue, pretending to consider. “Seems high-handed, don’t you think? I can’t abide bad manners. What say . . . we leave it up to the lady?”
Eliza swallowed, a warm sting of steel. “That won’t be necessary—”
“I’m afraid I must insist you choose.” Todd laughed, as black and empty a sound as she’d ever heard. “You had your chance to end me, Eliza. You wasted it. Now, either you go with Will, and live a long and dismal life as that cold undead thing over there. Or, you stay with me”—he traced the knife lightly under her chin, a tiny electric shock—“and I carve your pretty flesh into a warm and lovely work of art.”
So it comes to this.
Shock didn’t seem appropriate. Nor fear, nor despair. Ever since that warm velvet night in Chelsea, she’d known he’d be her death. No point crying about it now.
She choked on stupid laughter. That was something Lizzie might say. You’re screwed right and proper, missy, screwed to the wall, and you might as well just accept it.
Whatever her fate, Lizzie would share it. It wasn’t fair. What would Lizzie choose? Life at any cost? Or a swift end?
Overhead, lightning crashed, blinding. Current crackled along the dome’s metal-studded struts. Behind her, Lafayette growled, a wolfish curse. Was he changing, in the storm’s flashing fire, with wind whirling and thunder dragging madness from his blood? She felt half-mad herself, crazed, reckless.
Life as an undead monster? Or a quick death?
Will shook his ragged yellow hair, sweat flying on the wind. His face—that young, earnest face she’d been so fond of—had become but half a man’s . . . yet still not fully warped by the beast inside. “Only you can save me, Eliza,” he pleaded. “Without you, I can’t control it. I can’t make it stop. Be my perfect wife. Please.”
And in a glassy flash of unreason, she knew what she must do.
She closed her eyes. Inhaled the stormy air once more, the tingle of power along her skin, the knife’s sweet sting on her throat. Basked in Mr. Todd’s strange-scented fever, imagined one more time trailing her lips over his silken hair. Listened to a few more beats of his secret heart.
Will screamed, coarse fur sprouting on his cheeks. “Stop it. Don’t make me change. I don’t like it. Don’t . . .”
Heedless of the sharp knife, she twisted in Mr. Todd’s embrace. Gazed up into his bloodshot green eyes, drank in his wild crimson locks, his sharp nose, the delicate lines of his chin. A stubborn knot in her heart dissolved—melted, a flood of breathless release—and if it was her common sense, or her will to resist, or just long months of pretending that died, she couldn’t say.
She knew only that it felt right.
“Kill me.” The whisper slipped out, gentle as her first sighing breath and as perfect.
Mr. Todd tightened his embrace, a secret space for them alone. Outside this magical bubble, the storm no doubt still raged, but Eliza heard nothing and no one.
“Thank you.” His whisper brushed her cheekbone, alive like spelldust. He dipped his forehead to hers, a childlike gesture of surrender, and traced his blade point in sparkles down the vein in her throat. Her pulse swelled, searching, pleading, and entranced in a fairy-lit dream, she tilted her chin up . . .
Lightning slashed the sky, a hellish boom of thunder. The moment shattered, a magic mirror in shards. And Will howled, aah-OOOH! like a moonstruck fiend, and lost control.
His body strained and shuddered, fury upon stormlight upon hungry curse. His fangs crunched, spit dripping from mottled jaws. His arms erupted in muscle and fur, tearing his shirtsleeves to shreds. His hands contorted, his thumb joints popped backwards into toes . . . and the glittering pistol dropped from his grip.
And swift as a striking cobra, Mr. Todd hurled Eliza at him.
Crunch! She and Will collided, knocking her breath away. Will skidded backwards . . . and fell onto the metal frame atop Miss Lucy.
The frame swung under his weight, and he scrambled to climb off. But a snarling pile of fur and claws hurtled through the air and landed on top of Will, pinning him down. Lafayette, wolf-turned, his leather restraints burst apart.
The two beasts roared and dived for each other. Fangs clashed, and blood splattered in arcs.
Eliza dived for Will’s fallen pistol. But Mr. Todd was quicker. With a snap of his wrist, he hurled his knife. It flew in a spinning steel arc and sliced a taut rope in half.
Twang! Whizz! A counterweight whistled downwards. And the metal frame hurtled skywards, taking Will and Lafayette with it.
Chains rattle
d, zingg!! Webs of ropes and wires snapped. The weight crashed into the floor, splinters flying. And the frame clanged into the iron-studded rafters and stuck there. The wolf-things snapped and clawed, drawing blood.
Crack! Lightning struck the dome. Bethlem quaked to its foundations. Blue fire crackled along the lightning rod and raced earthwards. Wolf-Lafayette roared and leapt into space, brandishing wicked claws.
He hit the grounding cable, and ping! it snapped. And blue electricity speared down the broken wire and stabbed Wolf-Will in the heart.
He screamed, his fur alight. Skin melting, muscles liquefying, bones popping in extreme heat. The stink of burning flesh fell like rain, and Will and headless Miss Lucy roasted together into a black husk of charred meat.
Lafayette landed on all fours, thud! He arched his back to howl at the storm, and the triumphant storm howled back.
Dazed, Eliza backed off. The pistol slipped in her sweaty palms. Now what?
But Lafayette—always somehow “he,” never “it”—just growled softly, tongue lolling. He paced a few steps, back and forth like a caged lion, his lean golden body rippling. His tail bristled and twitched, unsettled. One restless forepaw clawed the floor. His gaze never left hers all the while . . . but it shone clear, intelligent, impossibly blue.
And with a groan of cosmic surrender, the clouds broke and rain fell. Cold, diamond raindrops, pelting onto her upturned face. The burning dome hissed, and static crackled, lighting the falling raindrops like a web of fairy lanterns.
Only then did Eliza jerk to her senses and glance around, her treacherous heart skipping all over again.
But the talented Mr. Todd was gone.
FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT CAELUM
LATE AFTERNOON SUNLIGHT PEERED THROUGH THE window of Eliza’s study, inquisitive. Pen stand and clock threw long, reddish shadows onto her desk. The fire had burned dim, and the tea Mrs. Poole had fetched sat cold on the tray, untouched.
The report on which she was working was lengthy and detailed, and she was finished at last. She signed her name—Eliza Jekyll, M.D.—blotted, and addressed an envelope: Commissioner, Metropolitan Police, Great Scotland Yard. Tucked the report inside. Sealed it and put down her inky fountain pen with a sigh.
In the end, she’d confined the report to pure forensic evidence. Never mind bothering Harley with the details. He had enough to deal with.
She’d attended Mrs. Griffin’s funeral with a heavy heart. Another woman in a coffin, dead too soon. Harley was gutted, going through the motions, a corpse brought woodenly to life. Eliza had vowed she’d not let Inspector Reeve take the credit for his work. But the funeral had left her in a dark place, a shadowy tomb inhabited by the ghosts of dead women. Miss Lucy, Lady Fairfax, Irina Pavlova, Ophelia Maskelyne, Sally Fingers, Madeleine Jekyll. She knew they’d haunt her for a long time.
Death was death. You couldn’t defeat it. You couldn’t come back. Not without . . . spoiling something.
But the Commissioner would have her report in the morning, and it left no room for argument. The Chopper was dead. Case closed. End of story.
End of story, hell, whispered Lizzie dismissively. You know this ain’t over.
Eliza shivered, though the room was over-warm. Will Sinclair had proved true to his word about one thing, at least. The drug he’d given her was temporary, and once it wore off, Lizzie had woken, bad-tempered and sore but intact.
But they’d searched the asylum up and down, high and low, in every gallery and twisting staircase and hidden corridor, under every sodden bush in the garden. Mr. Todd was gone. Skipped out into the storm and vanished, a stain of breath on glass. And next morning, when she’d awoken late, exhausted and bleary-eyed after that mind-bending night, she’d almost tumbled from her bed in shock.
On her pillow lay a single, perfect, long-stemmed rose. Crimson, the exact shade of Mr. Todd’s hair. And beside it, on the pristine white linen, a single, perfect teardrop of blood.
That was a week ago.
She was still jumping at the tiniest sound, her pulse skipping at shadows, flickering lamps, unexpected chilly breezes. She’d barely slept. And in those moments when exhaustion did claim her, she dreamed. Sprinting along endless midnight streets, a nightmare city drenched in blood and fire. A monster breathing on the back of her neck, heartbeat in rhythm with hers, limbs moving in step, its distorted shadow hulking on the wall. Fingertips brushing her shoulder, a soft kiss on her cheek, the sweet scent of blood and starlight and wild red hair . . .
Rat-a-tat! A doorknock snapped her awake. She caught her breath. “Come.”
Mrs. Poole strode in. “What kind of visiting hours do you call this?”
Eliza smiled weakly. “Quite. Could we start from the beginning?”
Mrs. Poole busied herself clearing the untouched tea tray. “There’s a gentleman to call on you. Some presumptuous fellow. Shall I get rid of him?”
Her heart squeezed tight. “Who is it? Did he leave a card?”
“He left a pair of dazzling blue eyes and a grin fit to stun a horse. Is that enough?”
Faint bitterness stung her mouth. Disappointed? whispered Lizzie slyly. And Eliza had no answer.
She and Lafayette hadn’t spoken since that night at Bethlem. What did he want? And from whom?
Her gaze fell once more upon her desk, where a second, unfinished letter sat. She’d addressed it simply to The Philosopher, Royal Society, Tower of London.
Sir,
With respect to your kind offer of 21st instant
That was all she had so far.
She chewed her lip, troubled. Mr. Hyde had killed Madeleine. Twice. Killed Henry, too, though proving that in a court of law would be a first. And he’d threatened her with the same fate. He deserved to be brought to justice. Protecting him would cost Eliza her career, and probably her life.
But he was her father. He’d cared for her and Lizzie all these years, asking nothing in return but to be left alone. In his twisted way, he loved her—both of her. Was it justice to condemn him for his sins, when she knew too well the dark temptations of her own shadow side?
Lizzie snorted derisively. Whatever you say. You gonna let that mean old walking skeleton order us about? Screw him, and his brass-brained lackeys too.
Resolved, Eliza picked up her pen once more.
With respect to your kind offer of 21st instant, I must make further investigation. Expect to hear from me in due course.
Yours, &c.
Dr. Eliza Jekyll
That would buy her some time. No matter her father’s crimes, she couldn’t betray him to save her own skin. Not to the Royal. Not to anyone. She’d just have to deal with the Philosopher when the time came. In the meantime, she’d conduct investigations of her own into what the King of Rats was up to. If he truly was plotting against the Royal, she’d discover it. And she had Lizzie to help her. It wasn’t finished between Eliza Jekyll and Edward Hyde. Not by a long shot.
Eliza smoothed her hair and reluctantly headed downstairs. The delicious smell of warm pork pie drifted from the kitchen, but her appetite had long since withered.
The fire in her consulting room wasn’t lit. Sun slanted through the blinds. On the mantel, in a narrow glass vase, Mr. Todd’s rose still bloomed, unwilted. A solitary green thorn curled from the stem. The crimson petals were startling, incriminating. Passionate. Not a color associated with chaste courtship.
Lafayette stood tall, hands behind his back. Weapons polished, Royal Society badge bright on the breast of his scarlet tailcoat. He’d cut his hair, she noticed, but his curls already crept too long, and with a start she realized why. It must be difficult, staying presentable.
Her stomach parched, sick. He was intelligent. Amusing. Handsome. Had a refreshing lack of respect for propriety. Everything that made his acquaintance desirable, or at least acceptable. And at the sight of him, Lizzie’s smile shone, filling her heart with liquid sunshine.
But it only made Eliza’s guts twist tighter.
She nodd
ed stiffly. “Captain, how good of you to call.”
“Doctor.” He wasn’t fidgeting, not exactly—nothing so insecure—but did his gaze slip, just a fraction?
“Still with the Royal, I see.” Had she expected him to quit? Things seemed different. But . . .
A gunflash smile. “I’ve lied to them this long. I confess I rather enjoy it.”
“Still monsters to hunt?”
“Always.”
“The world is alive with strangeness, Captain. May there be mythical foes aplenty in your future.” She waited. “Well, if—”
“I could use a good crime scene investigator,” he remarked, gazing out the window. “From time to time. Off the books, of course. The Royal doesn’t take kindly to your flavor of meddling, madam. But in your case, I can make an exception.”
Despite her misgivings, the prospect tantalized. The stranger the case, the better . . . “Are you offering me a job?”
A little grin. “For shame. Nothing so mundane. What I’m offering is a few hours of subterfuge, cutting-edge science, and deadly peril in your otherwise excruciatingly dull days of ham-fisted bludgeonings and idiots with arsenic. Sounds more outrageous that way.”
“In that case,” she said brightly, “how could a respectable lady refuse?”
“A respectable lady would refuse, madam. That’s the point.” His grin faded. “How is Griffin, by the way? I was sorry to hear. He’s a decent fellow.”
“He’s . . . having a hard time. You know, I think he’d appreciate your call.”
“Really?” A bashful shrug. “I had the idea I annoyed him.”
She twisted her hands. “I’m sorry for what happened. That Will Sinclair was killed, I mean, before you had the chance to question him. I know you were counting on him for help.”
“For a cure, you mean.” This time, he looked directly at her. “It’s different for me. We don’t all cope as brilliantly as you.”
She squirmed. She felt too much of what Lizzie felt. She didn’t feel enough of it. “Listen, I know that Lizzie—”