Tenfold More Wicked

by Viola Carr

  “Red Cape,” grumbles I. “Murdered a friend of mine. Tried to have me offed, and all. I’m protecting myself. What’s your excuse?”

  Silently, they exchange glances and thoughts, as brothers do . . . and my sluggardly wits click into motion.

  This is what Remy’s lying about.

  All that “for your protection” bollocks? Not the wolf, or the Royal, nor another woman, as if his blasted honor would ever countenance that. He and Foreign Office Frankie is up to sommat, involving murderous bastards like Red Cape. A secret sommat what could get ’em killed.

  It could get me killed.

  My fists clench. “Tell me what’s afoot, or I’ll scream blue murder and every lousebrain from here to Seven Dials will hear.”

  “Be my guest.” François advances, fist tightening around that knife.

  Remy holds his brother back. “I suppose there’s no chance you’ll go home and forget you ever saw us?”

  I just gives him a greasy eyeball.

  Remy sighs. “The man you call Red Cape is Nemo.”

  “The one in the papers? What blew up that power plant? Well, shuck my arse and call me an oyster.”

  “Christ,” mutters François, “are you always this talkative to a pretty face, brother?” He makes the knife disappear. “Madam, tell me you’re what you seem, and not an enemy agent who’s screwed my brother’s wits away.”

  I wink. “Depends what I seem, sir.”

  All I get is a contemptuous flicker of that Lafayette family eyebrow.

  I flips him the finger. “You wish.” You can’t afford me, I nearly say, before I recall that he can. “You ain’t my type.”

  “My loss, I’m sure.”

  I cast an appreciative glance. Bitter bastard, ain’t you? I suppose that’s what comes of dying before your time. Ain’t leaning on no cane tonight, but your breath still wheezes. You’re fragile, but ain’t letting it stop you. I don’t want it, Remy told Eliza, about his family’s hoard of blood money. Maybe François, too, believes he’s got something to prove. Ready to kill me, that’s for sure, on the merest whisper of threat to his precious mission.

  A driven man. I like that.

  François coughs, lips pressed tight, as sick people do. “Do you trust her?”

  “With my life,” says Remy, without a flicker. Bless his foolish heart. “Lizzie can help us. She’s close to the King of Rats.”

  And here I were thinkin’ he wanted me for my fancy-lady airs. “What’s that to do with the price of eels?”

  Remy explains, swift and low. “The Incorruptibles are meeting tonight, in that house around the corner. You’ve heard of them?”

  I nod. The maniacs what blew up Horse Guards, set fire to Apsley House, shot at them Tories in the House of Commons. A folk hero, is Nemo, down where the weird lurks.

  Temptation licks my flesh. Someone’s gotta rise up against the power-mad pricks at the Royal, or we’ll all go down. Let the gutters run with their piss-stinking blood, says I. And I happen to know Eddie Hyde is Nemo’s biggest fan.

  On the other hand, ’twere Eddie what ratted on Red Cape when I asked him about Becky’s killer. Put me onto Mrs. Fletcher’s and Rose.

  Were Eddie using me? Does he secretly want Nemo dead? Or was I the one supposed to come off second best? Why would this Nemo character kill a small-time thief like Becky anyhow? What in hell’s going on?

  Then again, if it gets me Red Cape’s head on a stick, do I give a moldy fuck?

  “What’s it to you?” I whispers.

  “We suspect Nemo to be a French agent. A sorcerer. Un agent provocateur.”

  Now I care. I’ve heard them Parisian horror stories. Rampaging demons in the streets, sorcerers on the hunt, folk turning into monsters and eating human flesh. “Bloody hell.”

  “Just so, if whatever he’s plotting proceeds. That’s what we’re tasked to uncover. And why we didn’t want you killing him.” Remy hesitates. “We think Nemo is Harlequin. Using the Incorruptibles for his own ends.”

  I gape. Not just a French spy. The French spy. Only thing them Incorruptibles hate more than the Royal, it’s the French. These are criminals, thugs, angry young men. They’ve no love for sorcery. If they find out he’s playing them for fools? This Harlequin cove won’t last the night.

  But I don’t care if Red Cape is Robespierre himself, the original incorruptible, back from the dead with his head under his arm and his gunshot face in a jar. He killed Becky. I want my vengeance. And no piss-ant radical bookworms will take it from me.

  Captain Consumptive must’ve caught some restive look in my eye, because he sidles up, conspiratorial. “See, chérie, we can’t just kill him. We must let his plans ripen. Expose him red-handed, at the last second, so we can drag his entire foul crew down with him.” He grins, utterly merciless. “And then we can kill him. Is that agreeable?”

  I smile back, sultry. Mayhap he’s my type after all. “Why didn’t you say so before?”

  A few mud-choked alleys away, there’s a back entry to that house, down some steps and beneath a crumbling stone lintel, and we use it, first François, then Remy, with me in between.

  A single taper burns, jammed on a peg between floorboards overhead. The moldy basement walls crawl with that old-socks stink. Whispers drift from a broken wooden door at the end. François opens it a crack, exchanges brief words, and I catch the rough lilt of Bow Bells. I gotta admit, François is good. Sounds like a native, talks like a mad fanatic. Which, I suppose, he is. Just not the sort they think.

  Inside, candles burn on a low table. Men and women, murmuring in small groups. Some with veiled faces, hats pulled low. Others don’t care who sees ’em. At my ankles, a dog snarls. I stretch on tiptoes, searching noses and brows for Red Cape, alias Nemo.

  Remy touches my arm. I follow his nod, to a group in the corner. It’s Glass Eye, only now he’s arguing with . . . Oh.

  Glossy black hair, sharp young face. It’s Sheridan “paint-you-till-you-scream” Lightwood. Out of twig, in unkempt dusty duds instead of his usual fancy bohemian gent’s rig. Huh. Is that why he snuck in here t’other night, all secret-like? Artist boy is a radical . . . or a spy.

  François is already across the room, in palaver with folk I don’t recognize. Without need for words, Remy and I edge closer to Lightwood.

  Glass Eye makes a slashing motion, and Sheridan’s whisper carries, a mite too loud. “What do you want from me? I did my part. I can’t help it if the blackmailing little scum-feeder got himself killed.”

  “They tore his fucking heart out!”

  “Carmine got what he deserved,” hisses Sherry. “I don’t want to end up like him.” He eyes Nemo. “It’s too risky. Leave me out of it.”

  I glance at Remy, breathless. He glances back. We’re thinking the same thing.

  What if we had it all wrong?

  He is a Traitor and Wicked beyond sense. Carmine’s letter swims in my mind, fuzzy through Eliza’s spectacles. If we do not unmask Him everything is lost.

  Seems old Dalziel kept strange friends. What if he and Carmine were part of this gang too? What if, instead of some mythical coven master, they meant Nemo?

  “You knew,” I hiss in Remy’s face. It must have blistered, because he recoils. “Nemo killed them two because they found out he’s Harlequin! And you just let her make her mistakes. Why, for God’s sake?”

  A determined headshake. “I only suspected. It’s all just conjecture.”

  Conjecture, hell. Harlequin, French spy and sorcerer, manipulating the Incorruptibles for his own ends . . . and the keeper of that bloodsoaked pentacle ritual. What did Remy call it: a summoning?

  My bones shudder in fury, and I grab my blade. “I’ll carve the fucker’s throat out.”

  Remy’s holding me back, warm and close. “No, wait—”

  “But he’s the Pentacle Killer! He killed my friend Becky! What d’you want to do, arrest him?” I struggle free, and forge into the crowd.

  But a fresh group of men pushes
in, jostling me left and right. I can’t see past shoulders, hats, shocks of greasy hair. I’ve lost Remy, I scrabble for his hand but he’s swept away.

  Nemo jumps up on a table, cape swirling. “Citizens,” he calls. “Friends of freedom. You all know why we’re assembled tonight. The time for talking is done. We must rally the city.”

  An angry murmur rises, drowning him. “But the Dials is burning,” someone yells. “They’re scared. They’ll never help us.”

  Nemo motions for silence. “I told you we had allies. The Rats’ Castle . . .”

  “God-rotted sorcerers,” the same bloke bellows. Seems the majority agrees, because they start yelling, too. “Fairy-arsed bastards!” “Burn all the mutants!” “Won’t stand with no fucking freaks.”

  Picky, ain’t they? You’d think anything with a weapon and a heartbeat would do.

  Another man leaps up beside Nemo . . . and my heart drops into my guts like a rock. I halt in my tracks. Crooked hat, hunched shoulder, lopsided grin what must once have been handsome—and that deranged storm-gray stare.

  Eddie Hyde. Lurking like poisoned eggs laid in the mud, hatching his bloody rebellion. Not much chance he don’t know who exactly he’s dealing with.

  Whatever Harlequin’s planning? Eddie’s in on it.

  Burnings, inquisitions, slave markets and cannibalistic rites. Armies of demon-possessed soldiers, laying waste to the streets. Rebels and Protestants, skinned alive in the public squares to placate some chaos-loving deity.

  This is what we’re told is happening. What Harlequin and his pack of spell-addled fanatics want to bring to London. A sorcerers’ revolution, in all its bloodstained glory.

  I remember Eddie’s madness, that night the Cockatrice burned. Death-hungry, cackling like a monster. How far would Eddie go, to stick it up the Royal? Just how badly does he want to burn the world?

  “Call us freaks, will you?” Eddie roars into the din. “This is our city, too, and we’ve ripped apart more Enforcers than you’ve had buttfucks, you glocky sons of dogs. Without us, you’re fish food by week’s end, every last one o’ you. Bloody schoolboys, you’ve no idea how to fight a war.”

  A few people shout insults. Hyde howls laughter. “Here’s a hard truth, ladies. Run with us, and we’ll tear this place apart around the god-rotted Royal’s ears. Want to run against us? Be my frigging guests. When the Thames flows red with stinking Royal blood and my crooked arse farts on that throne at St. James’s Palace? I’ll remember who called me freak.”

  Some people cheer. Then more. Nemo—Harlequin?—yells for silence. “Now’s no time for infighting. Let’s make peace with our enemy’s enemy. One more dawn, that’s all. Now go home. Rally your friends. Start the whispers. When the barricades go up, we’ll need our allies at the Rats’. One simple question, friends. Die on your feet, or live on your knees?”

  They all look at each other. Mutter, nod, fidget.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. I suck in a bitter-stained lungful, and scream, “Incorruptible!”

  A voice joins me, takes up the catch-cry. More, until the boards shake with it. “Incorruptible! Incorruptible!”

  Eddie laughs, uproarious, that demented fire in his eyes. He pounds Nemo on the back. Nemo grins, satisfied, chilly as death. The same black grin he gave when he’d just gutted Becky in the mud.

  I shiver, unmade by the same queer sense of wrong I got from Moriarty Quick. Nemo’s up to something evil.

  The crowd mills, congratulating each other, vowing liberty or death. A woman claps me on the shoulder. I smile and nod. A sooty-faced bloke in a greasy tailcoat flings his arm about my neck. “Tomorrow we could be dead,” he lisps. “Let’s you and I make the most of tonight, eh?”

  “In your dreams, granddad.” I shove him away. Eddie’s dancing on the table, kicking up his heels and waving his hat like a wasp-stung leprechaun. I’ve lost sight of Nemo. He’s gone. Shit.

  There. His head, bobbing above the crowd. I grip my cane, fight towards him.

  “Lizzie!” Remy’s yelling after me. “Wait!”

  But I’m already slipping out into foggy night. Moonlight tumbles like falling stars through the mist. Ahead, Nemo vanishes into the glittering dark like a ghost. I sprint down a side lane, around a corner where a starving dog whimpers, too weak to get up. I vault over a broken wall, skid around a barrel on my heels, and back out into the street. Now I’m ahead of him.

  I hunker in shadow, easing my muttering dragon free. Here Becky’s killer comes, plop, plop in the mud like marching death. His face looms from the fog, that hooked nose, the flat empty eyes of a beast.

  I step into his path, moonlight dripping from my blade. “Stand and deliver, fucknuts. Or the devil take you.”

  Recognition alights in Nemo’s blackshine gaze. He grins, and goes for his knife.

  “Uh-uh.” I stand off, arm outstretched. My point slices his windpipe, a crimson splotch.

  He freezes, hand hovering over his hip, where that red-lined cape drifts, concealing what’s underneath. He’s quick, but I’d a head start. “What do you want?” Deep, powerful voice. Wish you hadn’t seen that, he’d said. Now you’re wishing doubly, shitweed. Ha ha!

  I advance, backing him to the wall. “Stabbed my friend, you did. Becky Pearce. For her I’ll make you bleed.”

  His cocky laughter just stokes my rage.

  Schwick! I stab him through the shoulder, a bright crimson rosette. “But for me, I’ll make you hurt.”

  He gasps a curse. Scrabbles for his knife, but I kick it away. Plop! Out of reach.

  “Not so bloody cocksure now.” I twist my blade deeper, searching for bone. He grabs me, drags me to my knees in the muck. I can smell his sweat, his bitter breath. He’s strong, heavier by half than I.

  But I’ve got a blade stuck in him. He don’t have one stuck in me.

  I cackle like a weed-happy witch. I’ve still got a goodly hour before midnight, and now that he’s at my mercy, I’m itching to know if he really is a traitor. “Dirty Froggie spy, are you, Harlequin?”

  He chokes blood. “You’ve got it all wrong—”

  “Shut up.” I shove the dragon blade deeper, so the point scrapes the bricks. His sour fear-scent, his panicked heartbeat . . . My breath quickens. I like his pain, the coppery smell of his blood. “Wrong, am I? They discovered you, Carmine, and what’s-’is-name. So you killed ’em. Eddie Hyde’s my father, you smarmy dog-screwer. Rat him out, will you?”

  He wheezes wet pink laughter. “You stupid whore. I’m only an underling. It’s only just begun. L’Arlequin . . . you’ll never catch him—”

  Thwock! Blood splurts onto my dress.

  Nemo’s breath rattles. A curved steel throwing knife is buried to the hilt in his neck.

  Only an underling. My eyes boggle. No time to wonder what in hell he were on about. I try to turn, see who threw that, but Nemo slumps onto me, crushing me into the mud.

  Fuck, he’s heavy. I can’t wriggle free. His blood drips onto my face, into my eyes. I’m trapped.

  Boots splash in the mud, advancing. Squick, squock, squick, squock.

  Oi. Where’s my dragon? Can’t find him. I squirm from beneath all that dead meat at last—Christ, this cove must weigh three hundred pounds—but too late.

  Harlequin—for it’s gotta be he, the real he—Harlequin looms, a moonlit silhouette. Black cloak with a hood. I can’t make out his face.

  In his gloved fist glints his second knife.

  My pulse sparkles wild. I scramble backwards, hands and heels, but terror stabs my spine cold, spikes me numb while my instincts howl for flight. My belly cramps, hell, did I just piss myself?

  Harlequin leans over, blocking out the light. Aether drifts, that stormy electric scent . . . and the tingling sherbet sweetness of sorcery.

  Oof! A cold punch hits my guts. A tearing sound, schllp!, like ripping orange peel.

  “I’m sorry.” Honest regret, a shake of his hooded head. “You should have left it alone.”

  And he rips
his knife from my belly, and strides away, leaving me to die.

  I grab my guts. Burning blood gushes. Suddenly it hurts like a bastard.

  I shout for help, but only a bloody choke comes out. I fight to crawl, get up, run. Anything but lie here and bleed.

  But he’s cut the muscles. Nothing happens. I can’t move.

  Nemo’s dead face stares, inches from mine. Already, a fly buzzes around his slack mouth. My courage gasps and drowns. Just a lump of meat in the mud. I can’t end like that. Fuck it, I won’t die here.

  A man’s voice shouts a name. Lizzie. That’s me. I try to shout back, but all I do is flop like a grounded fish.

  Eliza, help me. How I yearn for that bittersweet shudder in my blood. Nothing like a change for healing our wounds. Desperately, I search. Come on, girl, out you pop . . .

  Only blackness, and the retching aftertaste of silvery snail dribble.

  Silently, I scream, and curse Moriarty Quick’s lies. Temporary, my arse. Eliza, for God’s sake. I didn’t mean what I said! I’m sorry! Come back . . .

  But I can’t hear her voice. I can’t feel her featherlight touch.

  She’s gone. I’ve killed her.

  I’ve killed us both.

  I clutch the gushing mess that’s my belly. It’s warm in there, slick snakes of flesh. Those shouts edge closer, footsteps pound. The brothers Lafayette. Remy skids to my side, bunching my skirts to soak up the blood. “Lizzie, stay with me. François, aide-moi . . . You have to change, Lizzie. You’re bleeding.”

  Bleeding, bleeding . . . It bounces away, a lost echo. Separated from me, as if I’m trapped in a jar, pawing the glass with bloodied fingers, a fruitless effort to touch him.

  God, it hurts now he’s here. Eliza’s my strength. Always has been. It’s more than I can bear alone.

  He smooths my sweat-soaked hair. His tears fall like ice crystals on my fevered face. “Eliza, you have to change. You have to save yourself.”

  The agony munches me like a monster, gobbling up my legs, gnawing into my chest. What’s that, getting in my eyes? It’s all dim out there. I bat ’em, try to wipe it away. No dice. Christ, a person can live for days gut-stabbed. Can’t I hold on just a few minutes more?