Tenfold More Wicked

by Viola Carr

  No. I ain’t delighting in death. This is self-defense. Not the same thing . . . but we made a god-rotted deal, Quick and I, and screw me for a simpleton, but Miss Lizzie keeps her word.

  Disgusted, I hurl Quick to the floor. “If you’ve tricked me, you addle-brained worm eater, I’ll come for you, and you won’t get off on what comes with me.”

  He cackles. “Wouldn’t bet on that.”

  I pluck the bottle’s glass marble stopper. Thumb the neck, and upturn it. A slick pewter drop oozes, and a rusty smell assaults me, some rotted, corrupt stench that oils my nostrils.

  Fuck it. I shove my wet thumb into my mouth.

  My tongue burns, gritty slime spreading. I inhale, and metallic fumes water my eyes. My heart jumps a few beats faster, and stays there. And a strange knot in my belly I didn’t realize was there . . . loosens.

  That’s all.

  On the floor, Moriarty Quick wipes his bleeding throat and licks his fingers, sniggering. “Enjoy.”

  I kick him, just for fun, and stride out.

  Warm Piccadilly sun kisses my skin awake. That oily taste is fading, leaving a contented glow. Compelled, I sip a little more. It slides down nice, murmuring like a dream lover, eager to please. I flex experimental muscles. I’m strong, relaxed, untroubled by doubt. The chortling little facteroo that Moriarty Quick might have more’n his share to do with that black-magic malarkey makes no nevermind to me. I feel good.

  I’m twenty yards up the street before I tumble to what were nagging me.

  Henry Jekyll’s near twenty years gone. Which makes Marcellus Finch quite the youngster, back in the day when he brewed Henry’s potion. Now, Finch is white-haired, frail, misplacing his marbles. Practically an old man.

  But Quick—the PURVEYOR OF BEAUTY—Quick’s skin is smooth. Good teeth, bright yellow hair. Looks twenty-five at worst, even after fourteen hard-bitten years in Van Diemen’s Land, which by all accounts is on the far side of the world and the Empire’s blackest hell.

  Potions, lotions, efficacious pharmaceuticals. The best in town.

  Half-circle, circle, cross. Mercury.

  Unsettled, I glance back at Quick’s window. That pamphlet, wreathed in white lace. BEAUTIFUL FOR EVER.

  Hmm.

  THE SHIPWRECK OF MY REASON

  I BARELY REACH ELIZA’S HOUSE IN TIME. BECAUSE AS I blunder in the front—I have to, don’t I? my cabinet’s locked from the inside—when I creep in, muttering to myself like a nut-crazed squirrel, Penny Watt’s waiting in Eliza’s consulting room.

  Shit. I’d forgotten. The murder case, those alibis. Penny the liar. And now Moriarty Quick, with that tell-tale symbol inked into his skin.

  “Hello,” says she, pleasant-like. “I’m waiting for Dr. Jekyll. Is she available?” Still wearing mourning black, her skin improbably flawless. That twenty-quid enamel? Waist not so tight-laced today, curls neatly pinned. Daytime Penny, fit for public consumption.

  Like the Eliza version of me.

  “Um. For certain. I’ll just fetch her. You, er, wait right there.”

  Cursing, I duck upstairs to Eliza’s study. Her brass pet’s still in forlorn pieces on the desk. I grab a paper scrap, scribble a message, stuff it down our bodice where she’ll find it. I breathe deeply, relax. Let Eliza out.

  She don’t come.

  I try again. Soften my muscles, ease in a breath . . .

  I rub stinging eyes. My head’s swirling, dark storm water down a drain. Come, Eliza, don’t ignore me now . . .

  Nothing.

  Quick’s potion. Only a sip. Just a whisper on my tongue.

  It works.

  Perverse sunshine warms my soul. I giggle and whirl, arms outstretched. It works. I’m FREE, God rot her, this body is MINE and I can do as I please . . . and I took only a drop! Imagine if I scarfed the whole thing . . .

  But abruptly, I subside. Jesus up a drainpipe. Not now. I need her.

  Ain’t irony a killer?

  Swiftly, I stuff Quick’s greasy bottle under the sofa cushions and fumble in her bag for Finch’s sugar-pink poison. Eddie’s Patented Calm Juice, eh? How’d that work for you, Marcellus?

  I quaff, nearly draining it in haste. Unbearable chilly sweetness, obliterating the gritty oil of Quick’s hellbrew. The stuff splashes into my stomach, a starburst of cold sick, and too late it occurs to me that we never asked Finch what this gear actually did to Eddie.

  My guts thrash like salted snakes, and Eliza stirs. Yes. Come, girl. No danger here. I breathe, wriggle, stretch . . .

  Spoinngg! Eliza gasped, fighting misshapen lungs. Her skin stung, overstretched, and her scalp tingled with newly blond hair shrinking tight. A horrid oily taste coated her throat. She felt as if she’d been dragged headfirst through a laundry mangle.

  She fumbled for her spare spectacles, fastened her loosened buttons . . . and paper crackled under her fingertips. She pulled it from her bodice, smearing fresh ink.

  Lizzie’s handwriting, stark and black. QUICK, it said, and a symbol. Half-circle, circle, cross.

  Mercury.

  Dizzy images floated. Saffron curtains, frothing lace, a fine crimson-dripped slice. BEAUTIFUL FOR EVER. What deal had Lizzie done with Moriarty Quick?

  Baffled, Eliza pocketed the note and hurried down to her consulting room. “Miss Watt, so pleased you dropped by.”

  Heartily, the girl shook her hand. “Please, it’s Penny. May I call you Eliza?”

  “Of course. Tea?” she offered belatedly, noticing Mrs. Poole hovering meaningfully in the doorway. “I’m afraid I’ve nothing stronger.”

  “Tea would be lovely.” Penny arranged her skirts as Mrs. Poole poured. A pair of corkscrew curls hung starkly against her ultra-pale cheeks, and a stiff jet choker forced her chin high. A doll, pretty and pliable, but her eyes were puffy from weeping. “Did you hear the dreadful news about Carmine? I’m beside myself. If I’d only done the decent thing and taken the poor boy home that night, he might still be alive.”

  As Mrs. Poole exited, Eliza played with her cup, wishing for Harley Griffin’s talent for detecting lies. Penny’s distress sounded genuine. “Do you mind if I ask . . .”

  “Not at all. One must face these things head-on.” Penny sipped delicately. “Do I know anyone who’d want Carmine dead? Dozens, darling. We’re all frightfully jealous. Including me, sadly. I’d give anything for a fraction of his talent.”

  Eliza’s indignation flared. The man was a common thief. “Was Mr. Lightwood jealous, too?”

  “Especially Sherry. Are you establishing alibis? How exciting.” Penny’s gaze shone. “That evening, I visited Soho again. More gruesome all-night debauchery, I’m afraid. Sheridan, too. I suppose it pleases the little monster to sneer at me.”

  Liar! Lizzie’s yell echoed from afar. I seen Sherry that night at the Rising Sun. But she weren’t there.

  “Well, that’s strange,” countered Eliza, “because I’ve since heard a different story about what happened at Sir Dalziel’s the night he died.”

  Penny laughed. “From whom, pray? They must be lying.”

  “Did you really leave before two?”

  “Of course.”

  “Wasn’t something other than dinner happening?”

  “I’m sure I don’t—”

  “Carmine didn’t paint Eve and the Serpent, did he?” Change-of-subject ambush, Lafayette style.

  Tea splashed Penny’s hand. “What? Nonsense. You must be mistaken.”

  “No. I happen to know the true artist. Carmine stole Eve and passed her off as his own.”

  “You don’t say.” Penny’s face greened. Eliza had envied her brash confidence. But she didn’t look confident now. Just scared and vulnerable.

  Firmly, Eliza crushed her sympathy. This was no time to go easy. “Oh, I do say, Miss Watt. Hard to believe his closest friends knew nothing. I daresay the police will be interested in your version of the story. Or would you prefer to tell me?”

  Penny set her tea aside, saucer rattling. “After Dalziel
was killed, we suspected what had happened, but I was afraid. I didn’t know what to do! But now Carmine’s dead, too.” Her eyes shimmered. “We should have spoken up. It’s all my fault.”

  “You can’t blame yourself.” Yes, you should. The uncharitable thought splattered like blood. Just like Lizzie, acting up and crying about it later. What had Penny expected? Actions had consequences, even for celebrated art models and society butterflies. “Tell me everything, and maybe we can fix this.”

  Penny cleared her throat. “I’m afraid we’ve been dishonest with you. Sheridan and I, that is. That night, after Dalziel’s party . . . we were together. A scandalous liaison. It went badly for him, and he’s frightfully vain. I . . . I didn’t want to tell anyone. So we lied about where we were. But Dalziel was alive when we left the party.” She shuddered. “I can only deduce what happened, but . . .”

  Eliza recalled her suspicion that Carmine had hidden his true whereabouts. She’d picked the wrong liar. “Tell me about the coven meetings,” she prompted. “We found letters suggesting that Carmine and Sir Dalziel were threatening to expose someone they called the ‘master,’ for practicing black magic.”

  “Then they were fools. He always knows everything.”

  Eliza leaned forwards. “Who? The culprit won’t go unpunished. You have my word.”

  Penny toyed with her choker. “The séances were fun, the first few times. Incantations, sex magic, pretending to raise the spirits of the dead. A change from dry political talk. And you needed a secret invitation to get in. All very cloak-and-dagger. But it was only in fun. There was absinthe, opium, arsenic. All manner of debauchery.”

  “So the magic wasn’t real?”

  “I didn’t say that. Crazy old Dalziel was convinced he’d made a pact with a devil he called ‘the gray man.’ He claimed he sketched for this gray man, and in return the gray man gave him eternal life.”

  Nutty as a fruitcake, Brigham had said. He thought he’d live forever. Uneasily, Eliza recalled the Philosopher’s ageless eyes and translucent skin, all his vitality drained. A living husk. What had Sir Isaac sacrificed for his immortality? “The gray man? Did he mean this Dr. Silberman?”

  Penny hesitated. “Have you ever experienced mesmerism?”

  Eliza winced. She preferred to keep an open mind. Once she’d attended one of those popular entertainments where people spoke in garbled tongues or flapped their arms like a chicken’s wings, supposedly under a hypnotist’s influence. Oddly, she’d remained unaffected. The Royal Society insisted mind control was rubbish. For once, she agreed. “I don’t believe it has scientific basis.”

  “That’s what I thought. But I tell you, I saw those ‘demons’ he pretended to conjure. I was drawn in utterly. Mass hypnotism is very real, Doctor. Eagerly, I agreed to everything he wanted. You can imagine the sort of thing. Disgusting.”

  “Who?”

  “The master. The man with the tattoo. His power is terrifying. Everyone becomes his slave.”

  “You mean Silberman?”

  Penny shivered, nodding. “That isn’t his real name. Sheridan and I sneaked a look at his things once. I found a card.”

  “Yes?” Eliza held her breath. In her pocket, Lizzie’s note rustled, ominous. Quick. Mercury. Quicksilver. And the German word for “silver” was . . .

  Scritch-scratch! Something rubbed against the door.

  Abruptly, Penny shrank back into her seat. Frustrated, Eliza jumped up and flung open the door. “What?”

  At her feet, a pile of blue skirts cursed, and from it scrambled a young lady, her plum-red lips pursed in an expression of chagrin. Not remorse. Just disappointment she’d been caught.

  It was the girl Hipp had knocked over in Finch’s shop. Who’d ridden a velocipede past Eliza’s house yesterday afternoon, almost knocking Eliza over in turn. Same blue velvet dress, round face, pretty brown eyes.

  Swiftly, Eliza leveled her stinger. “Who are you? How did you get in? Answer, or I’ll have you arrested.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the intruder. “I can explain . . .”

  “Miss Burton, there you are!” Mrs. Poole bustled into the hall. “Oh, have you two finally met? About time.”

  The girl bobbed a defiant curtsy. Miss Burton. Her boarder. Eliza spluttered. “How dare you eavesdrop on my private conversations?”

  “I say,” put in Penny, emerging from the consulting room, “how frightfully droll. Do carry on, ladies.”

  “Humph.” Mrs. Poole folded indignant arms. “Spy, is it? We’ll have you out on the street, you little ingrate. I’ve a mind to report you to the police.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend that.” Miss Burton held out a polished iron badge, engraved with the words NULLIUS IN VERBA.

  A Royal Society agent.

  Flee, Eliza’s muscles hissed urgently. The game’s up. Run! Delusions of persy-cootion, indeed. She’d been right all along.

  But guilty waters swirled over her head. She’d invited the spy into her house. Asked no questions. What a fool she’d been. “Are you spying for Lady Lovelace? Did you put that listening device in my pet, you brazen jade?”

  Miss Burton slipped her badge away. “A spy, as you say, but I didn’t touch your pet. And I don’t work for Lady Lovelace.”

  “Then who . . . ?” Eliza’s voice withered. “Oh, my. He sent you to watch me, didn’t he?”

  “As I said, I can explain—”

  “He put you in my house. And all the time, I . . . Heavens, I must be the daftest woman in London . . .”

  Crack!

  She recoiled, flailing. What now?

  The front door’s mail slot snapped, dropping a tri-folded letter at her feet. A crimson seal winked up at her, the imprint of a tiny rose.

  Breathless, she feigned disinterest. “Well, this is a fine snake pit of deception, isn’t it? Miss Burton, you’ll leave my house the minute you’ve somewhere fit to go. Miss Watt, thank you for your information. I’ll follow up in due course. Might I see you out?”

  The moment she was alone, she tore the letter open. Mr. Todd’s handwriting looked bolder, messier. As if he’d written in a frenzy.

  My princess,

  It’s so piquant to write to you, knowing you have read my letters and misunderstand me so utterly, it hurts. Your reply opened my eyes. Some days, I see more clearly, and I know now that I see what you are to me in shifting shades.

  Yes—I’m laughing as I write this!—it’s true. Something wonderful has happened to me—to us? I no longer know the word. Was it in that frightful asylum, those wires stabbing hellfire into my skull, all those hours spent screaming into the dark? I only know that I’m no longer myself. Or am I myself at last? Ha ha!

  As for your offer of distraction and solace, I’m afraid it won’t do. The world must be put in order. It’s merely a matter of time. Oh! I can barely contain my excitement. You and I will be special together, Eliza. I crave that so deeply. If you saw how I imagine us—well, you’d blush. I know I do.

  So, shall we begin? I left you a gift, at that desperately somber establishment you visited yesterday. As you know, I can’t abide rudeness. Messy, I’m afraid, but I’m out of practice.

  I hope you enjoy it.

  I did.

  Your eager slave,

  Odysseus Sharp

  P.S. That thieving Italian deserved to die. Pity someone got there before me. Ha ha! Did you see Eve, my princess? She has your face. But are you the lady, or the serpent?

  Chilled, she dropped the letter. It bore no stamp. Hand-delivered. Had he visited in broad daylight? A gift. At that establishment you visited yesterday . . .

  All the air sucked from her chest, and she grabbed her skirts and ran.

  She sprinted all the way, stumbling over gutters and in front of speeding carriages, shoving aside startled pedestrians. On Tottenham Court Road, a crossing sweeper cursed at her, kicking scattered horse dung. She dodged, nearly upsetting a clockwork valet, who clacked and screeched, “Stop! Thief!”

  At
last, she skidded to a halt at Hare’s Funerals.

  Bloody sunset splashed the dusty shop windows. A small crowd jostled and muttered. “Down in front!” “God spare us, I’ve never seen anything like . . .” Eliza shoved to the front, fighting for breath.

  A police constable with mutton-chop whiskers stood on duty, silver buttons brightly polished on his long dark blue coat. “Sorry, madam. Shop’s closed. Police business.”

  Frantic, she teetered on tiptoe, trying to see, but the black drapes were drawn. “What’s happened? Is everyone all right?”

  But she knew. That rude clerk had handled her. Made ill-mannered remarks about women in unsuitable professions. Certainly hadn’t treated her like a lady.

  Her head whirled like Mr. Hyde’s carousel, sickening her. Her knees buckled, and she gripped the constable’s shoulder. Oh, God . . .

  He steadied her. “Move along, madam. Nothing to see.”

  She trailed away listlessly. Dusk had crept in, and a man with a tall matchlock lit glass-boxed gaslights atop wrought-iron posts, pop! pop!

  Mr. Todd had killed the clerk. Slashed his throat, drained his life. She knew it, the way she knew two and two equaled four.

  But as she slowly headed for home along Great Russell Street, dodging commuters and rattling carts, her heart protested, a swift bitter ache. Todd wrote strange letters, but always poetic. Brimming with romance and wide-eyed wonder.

  This latest one was wild. Scribbled in a fever.

  Eerie giggles burst out. A bewildered gentleman tipped his hat, and Eliza only laughed more. A fever of what? Lunacy? Todd was mad. She’d gambled, and she’d lost. She dreaded the next morning’s paper, the headlines. Messy, I’m afraid . . .

  “No point wailing about it now,” retorted Lizzie, slinging her arm around Eliza’s shoulder. “The greasy lecher had it coming. But what are we gunna do about it? And who’ll be next? That’s the question.”

  Eliza shoved her away. “Have you no compassion? That man likely had a family who depended on him.”

  Lizzie tweaked Eliza’s nose. “None too bright, are you? Don’t you see what it means? Todd’s following us about! Prob’ly lurking in the shadows right now with a hard-on, sniggering at us.”