by Viola Carr
The students’ rooms lay at the end. She strained her ears. Voices, from the door at the end, faint light leaking underneath.
She crept closer, tugging the pistol from her bag. Sobbing, a woman’s voice. Then a man’s, more forceful. “No, Penny, I can’t let you . . .” Smack! Flesh on flesh, a shriek of rage.
Eliza flung open the door and burst in, weapon ready.
A narrow artist’s studio, bright with flickering oil lamps. Not opulent like Mr. Todd’s house. This was sparse, with whitewashed walls and bare floorboards. Books, papers, sketches, rolls of linen, ingredients for mixing paint, the familiar scent of linseed oil. Muslin cloth draped the tall windows, translucent for altering the quality of light. On the easel was pegged a large square canvas, shrouded in paint-stained linen.
Sheridan Lightwood and Penny Watt stared at her, interrupted mid-fight. Sheridan’s shirt was loose, his dark hair tumbling. He gripped Penny’s wrists, as if they’d been struggling. Penny’s auburn curls were mussed, her black satin dress in disarray.
Who’d been crying? Eliza couldn’t tell. Both breathing hard, their faces reddened, as if they’d been shouting . . . and Penny’s lip oozed blood.
“Danger!” yelled Hipp inside the bag. “Murder! Imminent peril!”
Eliza ignited the pistol’s charge, flick-snap! “Police. Let her go.”
Sheridan laughed. “Oh, for heaven’s sake.”
Penny yanked free and stumbled away, panting. “Thank God. I only came to apologize and he turned on me.”
“Christ, Pen, give it a rest.” Sheridan dragged back damp hair. “Doctor, get out of here. This is a private matter.”
Eliza edged further in and gestured with her pistol. “Step away from that painting.”
Sheridan smiled. Like Mr. Hyde, handsome and utterly corrupt. How had she not noticed before? “How about you step away? You’ve no idea who you’re dealing with.”
“Don’t I? That’s a portrait of you, isn’t it? Painted by Sir Dalziel Fleet, with help from the gray man. Your soul’s trapped in it. Shall I go on?”
A smirk. “I feel you’re about to.”
“Carmine killed Sir Dalziel and stole the painting,” she continued. “Probably because he planned to ruin you with the secret of how you truly won that patronage. Oh, I hardly blame you. You just did what was necessary, playing the old man’s evil games. But when you tracked Carmine down, he’d already sold it out of greed. So you tortured him until he told you where, and then you killed him.”
Penny’s mouth trembled. “Oh, God. Sherry, what does she mean?”
“You killed Strangeface Willy, too,” accused Eliza, ignoring Hipp’s bouncing and yelling, “and took the portrait back. And now here it is. Am I getting warm?”
A strange laugh from Sheridan. “Pen, don’t do this to me. Tell her.”
Penny just sobbed. “How could you? Dalziel was just a harmless old man. It wasn’t his fault he adored you.”
“You bitch.” Sheridan bolted for Eliza.
She squeezed the trigger. Crrack! Lightning struck Sheridan’s shoulder, flinging him backwards. He hit the floor, blue current forking over his twitching limbs.
Eliza pounced. Recharged her pistol, hiss-flick!, and aimed straight down into his face. Static crackled up her arms. “Move another inch, and I won’t aim for something harmless.”
Sheridan just choked for breath, smoke drifting from his hair. A raw burn snaked on his shoulder, inside his charred shirt . . . and it sizzled, and healed. His singed hair grew back.
Immortal. Beautiful. Soulless.
“I did it all for her,” he rasped. “I only wanted her to love me.”
“Sherry, don’t,” Penny sobbed . . . but then her sobs hiccuped into laughter.
Off-balance, Eliza whirled. The stained sheet lay at Penny’s feet, the painting unveiled at last.
An unframed forest portrait, almost life-sized, the canvas pegged out flat. Sheridan, painted in romantic style as a poet, flowing shirt and floating hair . . . but the figure’s skin was blotched with decay, the shirt stained with ichor from countless wounds. His spine hunched, twisted forever in pain, his belly misshapen from over-indulgence. That same snake-shaped burn showed raw on his shoulder. His half-smile twisted into a knowing leer, and his teeth bled in rotting gums. His perverted gaze glittered, amused by his own cruelty. Satisfied.
And he wasn’t alone.
A second figure completed the painting. Laughing like a maniac, her glossy eyes rolling. Her pretty face was rotted with sin, a dark hole where her nose used to be. Her body sagged, dissolute. Blood coated her arms to the elbows, and began to drip from her lip.
Two figures. Two souls. Two killers.
The real Penny grinned, blacker than midnight. The split on her perfect lip had healed perfectly. Such a beautiful girl.
“An entertaining tale, Doctor. Unfortunately, you made one false assumption.” Triumphantly, she aimed her own pistol into Eliza’s face. “Carmine didn’t kill that filthy old man. I did.”
CAIN’S HERESY
WHAT?” ELIZA’S MIND RATTLED. SHE’D BELIEVED what she’d wanted to, that Penny was innocent and all the others corrupt. All those lies, insinuations, alibis, designed to frame first Carmine, then Moriarty Quick, then Mr. Todd. Sheridan and Penny, pretending they hated each other, when all along . . .
Penny brandished her pistol. “Drop that gun. One step towards that picture, and I’ll burn your face off. What will you do, shoot me? You must know I won’t die.”
Eliza took a cautious step. “It’s not too late. You can still—”
Penny shifted her aim an inch and fired. Eliza yelped, hair springing tight in the stink of burned aether. “I’ve already killed three people this week,” Penny warned. “Tortured one to death, too. Ha! Think I won’t do the same to you?”
Still on the floor, Sheridan laughed. “Do as she says, Doctor. You don’t know her the way I do.”
Stiffly, Eliza powered down her pistol and tossed it away. Her mind scrambled for a new plan. Maybe Hipp . . .
“And the bag.”
She dropped that, too, cursing inwardly. Hipp wriggled like a spider, one brass leg poking out.
Penny kicked Eliza’s things aside. “Sheridan, stop whining and get up.”
Sheridan obeyed. Not a scrap of blood or burn, his sneering good looks unblemished. “Penny, we have to stop this.”
“You covered it up,” Eliza burst out. “I saw your footprints in the blood. She killed Dalziel, but you returned later. Made it look like a ritual, to fool the authorities.”
“Very good.” Penny sneered. “The old monster deserved it. Do you think I liked being in his thrall? A slave to his every foul whim?”
“Abuse doesn’t excuse murder,” snapped Eliza. “Why didn’t you report him to the police?”
Rage twisted Penny’s face. “A baronet? Are you serious? Curse you, and your middle-class ignorance. You’ve never been penniless. I was destitute. I’d have starved!”
“Plenty of people are starving, They’re not all killers—”
“Dalziel flattered us into sitting for him.” Oblivious, Penny ranted on, waving her pistol wildly. “He was talented, and handsome, oh yes, with his vile self-portrait keeping him pure. All those pretty lies, about how only I could be his muse. What a foolish ingénue I was. Once it was done, he had us over a barrel. Literally, sometimes. He didn’t care that we’d live forever. All he wanted was a model who’d always be pretty and a slave he couldn’t beat to death.”
“Pen,” whispered Sheridan, “enough. It’s over.”
“Shut up!” Penny howled. “Think you suffered for your art? At least he rewarded you. I had to hide behind a stupid male name. Those cringing fools see my work every day, but I’ll never be famous. You got everything and I got nothing and still all you do is whine.”
A look of abject disgust. “You know how I suffered. He cut me. He hurt me. Made me do evil things for his diabolical rituals—”
“Yo
u liked it, you vain little whore. All that play-acting, all the other victims he made you brutalize. It pleased you to watch him drool, didn’t it? And those men you hurt in Soho, Sherry, after I gave them what I wouldn’t give you. Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy that.”
Eliza gaped. That dead yellow-feathered parrot. Pirate Ship Gino.
Sheridan’s chin trembled. “You know I did that for you. They besmirched you, Pen. How could I let them live—”
“I got on my knees!” Penny’s face purpled. “I begged Dalziel to give me our painting, to set us free. He just laughed at me. Said it was gone, he was going to exhibit it, show everyone what we really were. So I stabbed his precious self-portrait and got my revenge. It was your idea to go back and tear his rotted heart out, Sherry. And that nonsense with the pentacles. What, didn’t Professor Quick adore you enough either?”
“We needed to pin it on someone.” Sheridan’s cheeks flooded with tears. “That Royal agent was already asking questions. I couldn’t bear it if they caught you!”
Keep them talking. Eliza’s gaze darted, searching for another weapon. “And Carmine?”
“Carmine was as bad as the rest,” Penny snapped. “He and his cracksmen cronies didn’t even know what they had. Once he found out, he thought he could use it against us.” A predatory smile. “I’ve never heard a man try so hard to scream. Did his heart taste good, Sherry, you devil?”
Sheridan flushed. “Shut up,” he muttered. “As if you never tried things.”
Eliza felt ill. That missing eyeball, the chewed heart . . . “What about Strangeface Willy?”
“The ugly fellow in Seven Dials? He’d seen the painting. He had to die.” Penny cackled, empty of emotion. “His face peeled off like apple skin. Did you like it? Good, because it’s your turn. Sherry, tie her up. She’s wriggling too much for my liking.”
Eliza tried to run, but Sheridan shoved her to her knees, binding her wrists tightly behind her back. He was sweating, pale. “Pen, be reasonable. How much vengeance is enough? We’ll never be free. What’s the point in going on?”
“He’s right.” Eliza struggled, but his knots were cruelly tight. “You can’t just keep killing people.”
“But I can.” Penny danced up to the painting, blowing herself a kiss. “This ugly crone grows old and rots. I can do whatever I want, and get off scot-free . . . Oh, spare me your moralizing!” she yelled at Eliza, a squall of fury. “I saw you at the Exhibition, swigging your hellbrew so she wouldn’t burst out and embarrass you. She wallows in filth while you swan around without a care. Who’s got a disposable conscience now?”
Eliza trembled. Was that all Lizzie was? A way for Eliza to sin without consequence? By night, Lizzie raged, indulging every whim fair or foul. And in the morning, Eliza awakened, pristine. Her conscience clear. Remade.
But her stomach curdled. Her conscience was far from clear. She’d been cruel and selfish enough today without Lizzie’s help.
“You’re mistaken.” Still she fought her bonds. Across the floor, Hipp peeked from the bag, flashing his indignant red light, and frantically she tried to warn him off before he was seen. “Trust me. It’ll come back to haunt you.”
“Ha! I beg to differ.” Penny pointed to her own eternally perfect face. “Don’t you recognize me? I’m immortal. The angel of vengeance! That’s my purpose. I know that now.”
Sheridan tugged Penny’s arm. “Let’s run away together,” he urged. “Take the painting with us. Abroad, where no one will recognize us. Spain, or even Egypt. Wouldn’t you like to see Egypt?”
“Not with you.”
His eyes drained. “But I love you, Penny. Since the beginning.”
“Love is a ghost, Sherry,” spat Penny. “A limb that hurts after it’s amputated. There is no love, not for people like us.”
“No.” Sheridan’s perfect cheekbones glittered with jeweled tears. “He didn’t take that away. I can still feel!”
“Do you think saying that makes it true?” Penny grabbed his hair and twisted, forcing him to look at the picture. “Your soul’s rotten. Look at it! There’s no love left in you, Sherry. You’re going nowhere but hell.”
“Let him go,” Eliza urged. Still the knots wouldn’t loosen. “You need medical care. You’re not yourself . . .”
“They won’t let me be myself!” Penny hurled Sheridan away. She tore her hair, raked sharp nails down her face. Blood oozed . . . and then the crimson streaks bubbled and healed, and picture-Penny’s face began to bleed. The real Penny laughed. “But now, I can be. See? It’s all just a game.”
Terrible sympathy burned in Eliza’s heart. I don’t want to be half of me, Todd had said. So wrong . . . but right, too. “No. You can’t be half a person, Penny. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
Penny waved her pistol. Boom! Blue lightning stabbed the tall window, and it shattered, a rush of warm breeze. She recharged, hiss-flick!, and jabbed the red-hot barrel into Eliza’s temple. “I know: I’ll kill you, and Sheridan can eat your body. All of it, not just the heart. No one will ever find you. Brilliant! What d’you think, Sherry, you little monster?”
Eliza’s guts heated, a wash of dumb incoherence. She struggled impotently. In a few seconds, the gun would recharge, and she’d be dead.
Sheridan’s eyes rolled, abruptly pearly white, as if his mind had snapped. “Don’t be cruel, my darling. We can work this out. I just want us to be the way we were.”
“I’ve always hated you, Sherry. Even when we were lovers, touching you made me sick. I’d rather die.” Zzap! Penny’s pistol charge re-ignited. Eliza’s guts clenched, and she braced herself . . .
“If you say so, Penn.” Suddenly Sheridan brandished a short, sharp knife. The kind that had carved those horrid pentacles.
Penny just laughed. “You can’t kill me. I’m immortal!”
Sheridan grinned, ghastly. “So am I.” Snap! He threw the knife.
It struck Penny in the chest, sinking to the hilt. Penny just laughed harder, and reached up to pull it out. For a moment, her pistol’s aim faltered . . . and Sheridan dived for an oil lamp, and hurled it.
Not at Penny. At the painting.
Fire streaked, a bright red arc. The lamp hit the easel and shattered, splashing hot oil across the canvas. Woof! Flame exploded, licking up the grisly portrait.
Penny shrieked, clawing her eyes. On the canvas, painted flesh crackled and melted. Faces dripped, eyes slid, hair and skin charred in seething, evil-smelling black smoke.
The real Sheridan and Penny burned, too. They collided, fighting, twin twisting pillars of flame. Skin bubbled, clothing erupted in fire. They rolled together in a boiling red inferno, and at last fell still.
Blackened, smoking husks, clutched in a hateful embrace. Transformed forever into the things they’d caused so much suffering to hide.
Eliza retched on the stink of burning flesh. Fire ate across the wooden floor towards the broken window, unstoppable. Like red-eyed imps, the flames gasped for air and swelled triumphantly, their low roar rising. Hipp bounded from her bag, and yelped as his feet heated up. “Fire! Exit!”
“Yes, thank you, Hipp.” Her hands were still tied behind her. Squatting, she scrabbled up the bag with difficulty, and tried for the pistol, but heat and smoke drove her back. She’d no way to extinguish this. Everything would burn.
Ancient wooden beams cracked as the ceiling caught alight. Flames dripped and cackled, victorious. Already, in the corridor, footsteps banged. Shouts rang. “Fire! Fire!”
Hipp squealed and sprinted for the door, disappearing into thick smoke. She sucked in one last clean breath, and ran.
Crash! A beam tumbled, dragging a curtain of flame. She staggered, coughing. Her spectacles were smeared with dirt. The smoke made her dizzy. The door seemed so terribly far. Lizzie, wake up. Help me! Give me strength.
Fruitlessly she kicked debris from her path. Hipp was gone. Her lungs spasmed, aching. No hands. Couldn’t see. Couldn’t find the exit. Couldn’t breathe. What a stupid w
ay to die.
So die, muttered Lizzie. Best for both of us. Better off without me . . .
“Eliza!” A scuffle, the bang of timber tossed aside. “Sound off, for God’s sake. If you burn to death, I’ll kill you.”
“Here!” She staggered towards Remy’s voice. Vicious heat lashed her face. Surely she was on fire, her skin melting like Penny’s. “Over here!”
“I see you . . .” More wood crashed, a rich British army curse. “I’ll meet you halfway. To your left. Keep coming . . .”
Awkwardly, she ran, flames grabbing greedily at her skirts. Collided, and strong arms swept her up, carried her into the corridor, down the stairs, into blessedly cool night air.
She choked, gratefully gasping clean lungfuls. Alive. Hipp galloped up, a flurry of soot. “Fire! Seek medical attention! Make greater speed! Fire!”
Around them, in smoke and ash, men ran and yelled, unrolling hoses and pumping handles. Clockwork fire engines cranked. People rushed up and down the front steps, carrying out paintings and etchings to pile them in the square. Gentlemen, scruffy folk, police, children—everyone was pitching in. Except a line of Enforcers, marching by towards Whitehall. Weapons glinting, flesh-grafted brass parts gleaming. Studiously ignoring the blaze, though the firefighters could clearly have used any help they could get.
She nudged at Remy’s chest. “I’m all right,” she spluttered. “Put me down, sir. I’m not a sack of wool.”
He set her down, and untied her hands. Her knees buckled. She steadied herself against his shoulder, slapping embers from her skirts and wiping smarting eyes.
Remy’s face was charmingly smudged, his scarlet coat dusted with soot. He was breathing hard, coughing, but still managed a smile and a jaunty tilt of saber. “Don’t look so alarmed, Doctor. All free of charge. You needn’t faint, or fling yourself into my arms or anything.”
But she did. Pressed her cheek against his coat and held him close. His startled embrace felt so warm, so safe. His heartbeat so strong. Just hold me, and don’t look down.