Tenfold More Wicked

by Viola Carr

  She wrapped her legs around Quick, hurling him onto his back in a billow of red velvet. Jumped astride him, grabbed his hair, and jammed her stinger under his chin. “Fiend,” she spat, in a shaking voice not wholly her own, “give me one reason I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

  Quick’s eyes glittered balefully. He wriggled one arm free, scrabbling for his tongs and the red-hot crucible. Her thumb tightened on the stinger’s switch . . .

  Bang! Electric lights popped on.

  Eliza’s skin wriggled. Her hair sprang loose and darkened, flesh crawling and stretching. Boots pounded down the aisles, bringing listless screams from Quick’s wretched victims. Her head splits, our head, our eyes boggle and swell as if we’re both seeing double. Half blind, we squint up together . . . into the grinning mustachioed mug of Chief Inspector Reeve.

  Suddenly crushers close in, truncheons bristling, a net of blue-coated wrath. Between our thighs, Moriarty Quick chortles like a half-brained magpie. “Now here’s a pretty problem.”

  Eliza and I fight over breath, and I win. Quick ain’t wrong. Bad enough that Reeve’s arrested me on no evidence before. Fact is, the Royal could nail his arse to the wall for employing a heretic. If she pops out o’ me, and he learns what he’s unwittingly harbored? We’ll never get out of whatever stink-mud hellhole he tosses us in.

  “’Ello, ’ello,” cries I, “if it ain’t Chief Inspector Nitwit!”

  Reeve kicks Quick in the face. “Lads,” orders he, “arrest this skinny Irish idiot for murder. Knew that evidence of mine would be watertight.”

  Eliza splutters in my chest. I was wrong about Quick, you idiot. It won’t stick! The real killer is still at large. You’re making a terrible mistake!

  I laugh at Reeve, mocking. Stealing our hard-earned evidence. Taking her credit, just as he done to Harley Griffin—but we had it arse-about. He’s got the wrong man. Serves the thieving little rat turd right.

  “And arrest this mouthy skirt, too,” adds Reeve, his triumphant grin setting my teeth a-tingle, “for disturbing the Queen’s peace. That Royal Society prat’s dirty bit of quim, eh? Don’t think I’ve forgotten you, missy.”

  Quick’s laughing gaze meets ours, conspiratorial. He’s bleeding, a tooth broken, happy as a drunken clam. Utterly off his rocker.

  And with a snaky whiplash, he grabs his glowing tongs, and flings ’em.

  Spoingg! I go flying across the stage. Reeve swears. Constables yell and scatter. The spinning tongs hit a crusher in the face. Ssss! He screeches, clutching his raw-burned cheek.

  Quick springs up, and upends the crucible, a river of molten red. Blinding black smoke chokes the room. The stage catches fire, flames chewing up the dry-rotted wood. The half-witted circus creatures screech and caper. The air fills with screams as half-clothed ladies and gents bang drunkenly into furniture or fall into the pit where scaly things munch and writhe.

  Triumphantly, Quick bolts, but a pack of roaring coppers crash-tackle him to the stage, slamming his face into hot floorboards. Crunch! Blood splashes. Ow, did that hurt? So sad.

  My vision splits and shudders, twin glassy worlds a-clash. Someone’s hacked me in two like a half-rotted ham, for it’s my flesh what crawls, my guts knotting like slithering snakes, but I’m also some dark-mirrored reflection of her . . . and it feels strangely good.

  Together but at odds, we scramble up, and leg it into the smoke.

  Reeve hollers, and constables thump after me. Great. Now we’re doing a runner from the law. Like he needed sommat more to nick us for. Rotting curtains slap my face, trailing sticky spiderwebs. My eyes sting in devilsmoke. I rip off her spectacles, but it don’t help. Still, the crushers can’t see neither, cursing and blundering every which way.

  Blam! My forehead hits a wooden beam. I stagger, blood splashing. A crusher stumbles closer. “Here she is, lads!”

  And that’s when someone grabs my wrist, and pulls me into the dark.

  Not the coppers. Someone else.

  I struggle, too canny to yell, but my stomach slicks cold. Is it the scaly pit thing, dragging me to an unsavory fate? Or is it Remy, stalking us in the moonlit night, his hungry wolfish instinct afire? My hat falls, hair tumbling. An unseen door clicks. Night air rinses my face, blessedly clean. All of a moment, I’m blinking at reddish moonlight in a shadowy alley, alone.

  Then, the shadows move.

  And Miss Lizzie splatters in fright, a dripping orange hurled against the wall . . . and dissolves.

  Mr. Todd tipped his hat, and gave Eliza an impish smile. “You received my invitation, I see.”

  A THING THAT CRIES TO HEAVEN

  ELIZA STAGGERED, HER BODY TINGLING, re-forming, changing. Flesh contracted, her bones creaking in sharp protest. Blood trickled into her eyes, the cut on her forehead knitting with a squelch.

  Todd watched her, a splash of color in the dark. Overhead, storm clouds threatened, streaked with bloodied moonlight. His black-dyed hair gleamed—what a travesty, to cover that crimson—his scarlet necktie like a razor’s slash . . . and his glittering fairy-green gaze riveted her to the spot.

  For a moment, she couldn’t breathe.

  Stars swirled, mocking her addled wits. She’d rehearsed this meeting, what she’d say, how she’d behave . . . but all had melted to delicious rose-scented mush at a tweak of his wicked smile. How utterly unscientific.

  “The card . . . th-that was you?” Say anything. Stall for time. Escape . . .

  “Naturally. And you’re dressed for the occasion, too. The eyes exult, my love. Not your usual subtle tones, but . . .” Todd licked indecent red lips. “Well, you know me and shades of crimson. I shall need to paint all night to get that out of my mind.”

  Instinctively, her fingers scuttled to her pockets. Empty. She’d dropped her stinger and reticule in the scuffle with Quick. She’d nothing to defend herself.

  Lizzie! You were right. I need you. Help me!

  But only bleak silence answered.

  Eliza trembled. Lizzie had fled. There was only her, and him . . . and that traitorous fire in her blood. Easy to be rational, wasn’t it, until she and Todd stood face-to-face. God, what a pointless contrivance two feet of empty space was. If he touched her, she’d probably wilt at the knees.

  Todd flicked ash from his cuff, a twinkle of diamond. “What did you think of the professor’s ghastly little games? He’s quite mad, you know. Someone really ought to lock the fellow up, bathe him in ice every few days, jam electrified wires into his brain, that sort of thing. It’s for his own good. Worked wonders for me.”

  Had he loitered in Quick’s dungeon the whole time, watching her? “We oughtn’t meet like this,” she improvised. “It isn’t safe.”

  “Of course it isn’t safe, madam. It’s positively perilous, and who’d want it otherwise? Since when was ‘dull’ a precondition for our intoxicating little chats? Did you receive my gift, by the way? I’m not ordinarily so forward, but . . .” He frowned at the moon. “Since you wrote me, I confess I haven’t felt quite myself.”

  Or am I myself at last? hissed his most recent letter’s author in her ear. Ha ha!

  She’d promised she’d fix this. “You asked for my help. I’d be delighted. I’ve already researched some innovative therapies we can try.”

  “Eliza, you needn’t pretend with me.” He took her hands. Long fingers, overly smooth and febrile. As if he burned inside.

  She swallowed, steeling herself. “Don’t be afraid. I believe I can make you well.”

  Todd’s face drained, ghostly. “Do you truly think so little of me?”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Do you remember what I told you, the night we first met?”

  Oh, she remembered, all right. You’re very pretty, Eliza. Would you like to dance with my shadow? Let me show you how I love you. “W-we said many things—”

  “I told you I like you just the way you are. I’ve only ever displayed faultless respect for you. I can’t think what I’ve done to deserve such disda
in. Your letter hurt me, Eliza.” Utter incomprehension darkened his face. “And I can’t bear the pain. It’s . . . most odd.”

  That gaze—luminous, lost—pierced her heart. “I meant only that I understand how difficult it is. My medications don’t always work well enough to suppress her. Lizzie, I mean.”

  Todd frowned. “Why on earth should you want that? Might as well amputate your own limbs. Inconvenient as well as painful, and only so many you can cut off before you run out of hands.”

  Agitated, he released her, leaving her hands chilled and bereft. Moonbeams danced over him, kissing his cheekbones, stroking his slim black coat, licking bloodied stains into his sooty hair.

  Suddenly touching him seemed more important than breathing.

  “Conditions such as ours can be treated,” she insisted shakily. She felt drunk and reckless, as if she’d guzzled too much of Lizzie’s gin. Caress his cheek, smell his hair, forget all the blood and death and secrets . . . “Come with me to Mr. Finch’s. We can experiment, see what works.”

  “But that’s impossible. Shadow is my friend. I can’t just cut him out like a stinky glob of gangrene. It’d be disrespectful. Come, let’s start afresh. We’ve so much to talk about.”

  Her head swirled. “But that undertaker’s clerk. The beadle. All the people Shadow kills . . .”

  Todd laughed, chilling. “Oh, Eliza. You’re such an innocent.”

  Suddenly the alley walls shuddered inwards, threatening. She edged away . . . and bumped against the bricks. Her heart pounded. Nowhere to run.

  “Leaving already, princess?” Ping! Steel flashed, and an exquisite, burning edge kissed her cheek. “Dance with my shadow, will you? You know you’re my weakness. I can refuse you nothing.”

  Her nerves wailed. Fight, kick and scream, do anything but stand here and let him cut her. But she didn’t dare move. His scent suffused her, redolent with frost-fire memory.

  What would Lizzie do? “Sir, I beg you . . .”

  “If you must, but I’d be disappointed. I never like it when they grovel. It’s predictable and undignified.” His bright gaze lingered over her loosened hair. “Yes, I killed your beadle. Why not? He was rude and dishonest. So much blood in him, I stood there for a good four or five minutes before he finished leaking . . . no, don’t avert your pretty face. I killed your revolting clerk, too.” He lifted his razor to the light, admiring the moonbeams that danced along the whetted edge. “What else could I do? You wouldn’t answer my letters, and when you did you weren’t in your right mind.”

  “I meant every word,” she whispered.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’ve never been more so. This is your second chance. You can’t keep doing this! Don’t you understand?”

  “No, and frankly, I’m astonished. I don’t want to be half of me. I can’t be half of me.” His knuckles whitened on the pearly handle. “Is this going to be a problem for us? I thought we had an understanding. Was I wrong?”

  Clouds scudded in front of the moon, and suddenly the light that loved him seemed menacing, the glitter in his eyes a sinister threat.

  Ice crackled deep in her bones. How arrogant, imagining she could save him. He didn’t want to be saved. Didn’t understand why he should be. He liked it just the way he was.

  Her mind stumbled, searching desperately for an escape. A team of police officers searched for Lizzie nearby, Reeve included. Eliza needed only to scream, and by morning Todd would be locked safely in Newgate. Justice would be served. She’d be free of him forever.

  Her throat parched. Inhale. Scream. Such a simple thing.

  “You’ll be caught,” she whispered. Threat, or warning?

  “I don’t think so. Especially not when you’re being so obligingly quiet. Anyone would think you wanted me to kill you.” Delicately, he traced her jaw with his razor’s edge—such precision, not to cut—and watched her flinch.

  The bricks rasped against her loosened hair. Idiot emotion made her shake and sweat. Jammed against a wall in the dark, no room to recoil. Paralyzed by her own indecision. What a stupid, pointless way to die.

  She raised her chin, defiant. “I know where you live. I could turn you in anytime.”

  “But you haven’t. Why is that, do you think?” A cruel smile. As if he’d enjoyed his little game . . . but now it was over.

  Her heart sickened. She felt betrayed. Tricked. Exposed as the dupe she was. “I could ask you the same,” she snapped. “You vex me exceedingly. If you’re planning to slit my throat, then proceed, sir. This charade grows tiresome.”

  Sting! A hot trickle on her jawbone. Was his hand shaking? “Are you baiting me, Eliza? I wouldn’t recommend it. Not the way I feel for you. Not when you’ve upset me so.” Todd caught her blood on one fingertip, admiring it as if it were a sparkling ruby. “Mmm. Shadow says you’d disappoint. That you’d fade just like the others, but it isn’t true. You could never be like the others to me.”

  To think she’d trembled at his touch for a different reason. “A dozen constables are searching for me within earshot. All I need do is scream.”

  In a blur, he yanked her close, crushing her hair in his fist. “Be my guest,” he hissed, an inch away. “Do you think they’ll arrive before you bleed out?”

  “Want to find out?” she spat, incensed. “Do it, then. Bathe in my blood if it makes you feel good. I was wrong about you, Malachi Todd. All your pretty words were lies. You’re not special. You’re just a beast like all the rest. Go on, cut me. I dare you. Will it be worth dying for?”

  A heartbeat of silence.

  He released her and stumbled back. Shaking, pale, eyes a-shimmer with fairy-green tears.

  Trembling, Eliza grabbed her skirts, and fled.

  By the time she reached Waterloo Bridge, it was four in the morning. The mist had died, and the wet street glared, edged with harsh gaslights. Exhaustion withered her muscles, her nerves stretched too tight. Lizzie was still strangely absent, just a grating echo beneath her skin, and Eliza’s bones ached, a feverish reminder that she’d made a horrendous mistake.

  Todd wasn’t sick. His brain wasn’t addled by disease she could cure. He knew perfectly well that his compulsion for blood was unconscionable and evil.

  He just didn’t care.

  And the worst of it was that Lizzie was right. In her head, Eliza had always known. Her vain, foolish heart had simply refused to believe.

  Wildly, she kicked at pebbles in the road, scattering them. So much for her precious zeal for justice, her physician’s instinct to heal. She’d betrayed them both . . . and for what? Girlish fascination with rebellion. Sympathy for a murderer. What an irretrievable idiot she’d been.

  Which brought her back to Captain Lafayette. His allegiance to the hated Royal—no matter his reasons—still crawled cold fleshworms under her skin. Could she work with a man whose loyalties were so divided?

  Could she marry one?

  Guilt swamped her as she ran up the steps to his darkened house. Her idiotic sensibilities didn’t matter. She’d abandoned him when he most needed a friend.

  She knocked, dismal, barely expecting an answer.

  The door creaked open.

  Her heartbeat drummed, so loud the world could surely hear. Was the wolf sleeping? Sated? Quietly, she slipped into the cold hall. Moonlight stabbed the window, hurled accusations at the floorboards, ricocheted off the mirror like bullets.

  “Captain Lafayette?” She peered into the drawing room, craned her neck in the stairwell.

  Silence. Darkness. Chill. And that faint flash of hope—that this month he’d been spared—flickered out.

  She descended, rigid with trepidation. In the basement, a single electric light burned.

  The cage sat empty. Open. Locks mangled, torn asunder by vicious claws. In the torn straw lay a single hank of golden fur, splashed with blood—and a white candle, wax splattered over straw-strewn chalk markings.

  An interest of mine, he’d called it. He’d tried a spell to
contain his wolf . . . and it hadn’t worked.

  Heavens, what had she done?

  Half crippled with dread, she stumbled back to the drawing room and lit a lamp. The dying match scorched her fingertips. Just a chaise, a writing table, a few chairs. No sense of the man himself. Lafayette didn’t live here. This was the wolf’s place, a safe house. And tonight, of all nights, it had failed him.

  She’d failed him. Was the terrible wolf at large? All she knew was the deathly bitter sting of guilt.

  Her strength drained, she wilted onto the chaise, hugging a cushion to her heart. Biting her lip, she stared into the dark. He’d be back. He’d be safe. All would be well.

  It had to be.

  Sunlight skewered Eliza’s eyelids, and she murmured sleepy protest.

  Her lamp smoked, burned out. Beneath her cheek, the chaise was soft and warm. A smoky smell drifted from Lizzie’s velvet skirts. A blanket cocooned her in the clean scent of pine needles.

  At the chaise’s far end perched Remy Lafayette. No coat, no gloves, freshly washed hair glistening in the sun.

  She sat up, fumbling with knotted locks. “Oh. Are you . . . ? Did the wolf . . . ? Is everything well?”

  Bruises ringed his eyes, but still he managed a smile. “It is now.”

  Should she ask? Did she want to know? Stiffly, she put the blanket aside, her throat parched. “Ahem. Look, you were right about—”

  “I just wanted to say—”

  They broke off together. He cleared his throat. “Ladies first.”

  “You were right to warn me I was risking everything. You tried only to protect me, and I threw it back at you. I shouldn’t have said what I said, about your wife. That was low. I’m sorry.”

  Lafayette dipped his head. “The fault was mine. I’m interfering with your life and it’s presumptuous and utterly unforgivable. I should have told you about Miss Burton.”

  “No,” she said firmly, “you shouldn’t. Whatever you’re involved in, it isn’t all about me. I realize that now. I should have trusted your reasons, but I didn’t, because I’m stubborn and ill-mannered and can’t bear not to get my way.” She swallowed. “I’m afraid that isn’t likely to change.”