Of Coppers and Cracksmen

by Katherine McIntyre

  “What’s up ahead?” Bernard mouthed, quiet enough that his words didn’t echo.

  Ellie lifted her globe light, casting the feeble beams out to get swallowed by the dark tunnels before them. Beyond the inky water and the impenetrable darkness farther down lay either another bisecting tunnel or a room.

  “Let’s explore,” she whispered. Ellie swept forward, bringing the ball of light in front of her to guide the way.

  Before she turned to the left, an icy shiver traveled down her nape. Intuition had always served her well in the past, but she didn’t dare look back. She needed to draw the Butcher out, but Bernard at her side deterred the monster. After all, his victims had all been isolated women—maybe the coward’s way was the only opportunity afforded to him.

  Ellie veered down the left corridor to spot an opening along the side of the hewn stone wall. If that was a room, maybe she could lure the Butcher in. Unless a blatant trap lay waiting for her inside.

  Either way, this ended tonight.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The farther they walked through these unholy tunnels, the more Bernard understood why the Butcher of Broad Street would lurk down here. Mold and scum clung to the stones and an oily, indistinguishable slick coated the surface of the water beneath them. Only the most twisted of minds could survive for long in a place like this, so far removed from the sunlight.

  Ellie strode forward with the same fearlessness she espoused in any sort of darkness, from abandoned homes to inky alleys. The woman fit with the underworld in a way he couldn’t imagine her separate from, no matter how much he longed for her to leave her life of crime behind.

  The tunnel they’d turned onto contained an entrance along the wall, short enough for him to duck into. Perhaps some side maintenance areas had been built into the main tunnels. He listened hard for any patter of footsteps or a splash that might come from anything heavier than a rat—though some of the specimens down here were formidable. He prayed the Butcher wasn’t trailing Silas and Theo instead of them.

  Yet if his current theory held truth, would the man reveal himself? Or would this monster continue to plague them night after night?

  Ellie ducked inside the opening first, her movements deft and silent. She brought the globe of light with her, the gentle rays illuminating the squat room in front of them as he hunched to join her inside. He pushed past the iron bars of what remained of a door, the flimsy thing emitting a hesitant creak.

  The dim rays from the globe exposed the dank, sparse room. As Bernard swept his gaze from the corners to the cracks, he noticed the large grate at the end of the room as well as the elevated counters jutting out from the walls. He didn’t spot any leftover tools, discarded trash or other signals a human had taken residence here.

  Ellie glanced to the door, and he followed her gaze.

  “Are you hoping to bait him inside?” Bernard asked, keeping his voice low. “I wouldn’t recommend the strategy, considering we’ve entered his domain.”

  “He doesn’t hold court over these sewers,” Ellie spat, casting a baleful look at the tunnels they’d escaped from. “We’ve been lurking here before he arrived, and we will far after.”

  Bernard reached out to squeeze her shoulder. Ellie held his hand and twisted around to face him. She stood on her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his. Even amid the fragrant decay threading through the air, the muddied water at their feet and the slicked stones surrounding them, Ellie’s kiss brought the scorch of summer, the blinding rays of the light and her sharp orange scent.

  She pulled back at once and took the first steps toward the exit.

  Bernard stood there for a moment, casting one last glance through the room to see if he’d missed anything. Just the chill of a mausoleum and more of this stagnant water. Ellie poked her head out past the entryway, peering from side to side.

  He swept forward, sluicing through the ankle-deep water to join her. Bernard had only taken a step when the metal door creaked shut.

  Ellie stood on the other side, and the lock rattled as she worked her tumblers into it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said before taking one last glance to the tunnel behind her. “If there was another way…”

  At that, she bolted.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Once Ellie stepped back into the tunnels and the beams from her globe splayed out, her gaze landed on a figure to the far right.

  She’d witnessed the incorporeal form from Bernard’s device, but she couldn’t ever mistake the deadness in those eyes for anything but a monster. One glimpse told her everything she needed to know.

  The Butcher of Broad Street stood far taller than her, with long, lanky limbs, milk-pale in the dark of the sewers. His long face, opaque eyes and rubbery lips gave him the appearance of something otherworldly. Pieces of his stringy hair stuck to his forehead, and the shadows highlighted the gauntness of his figure, like a walking skeleton.

  He stood far enough away that if Bernard appeared with her, the Butcher would bolt.

  No more. No more fearing every shadow that sprawled behind her, every vacant window she passed by and every morning she woke up, knowing this murderer sought her dead.

  The time to end this had arrived.

  Her hands moved before her brain caught up. She slammed the door shut between her and Bernard, and the picks flew out with a quicksilver speed. The lock clicked, but she couldn’t bear to look in and see the inevitable in his eyes.

  Ellie met the gaze of the Butcher of Broad Street and stared at those pale orbs filled with a malevolence branding on her bones.

  Let the chase begin.

  Ellie launched forward, water splashing around as she ran. This monster wanted the pursuit? Well then, she’d give it to him. The sound of her footsteps echoed louder and louder as she bolted through the tunnel, her calves flexing with how fast she sped along. Amid her own clatter, she could hear the heavier footfalls rise. She dared a glimpse behind.

  The Butcher raced after her, closing the distance at long last. His sickening eyes glinted from the stray beams her globe bounced around, and his teeth bared in a mockery of a smile.

  Ellie had been keeping track of each turn they’d taken since they’d entered. This was a section she’d long since mapped out for her own pursuits, and she wouldn’t hesitate to use the knowledge to her advantage. Not like a whit of that would matter if the Butcher managed to incapacitate her.

  She gambled on her strength, her dexterity and the slim slip of luck that hadn’t abandoned her yet. Ellie’s throat tightened as those footsteps pounded louder behind her. This had been a fool’s plan from the start.

  The water splashed up, printing on her legs, droplets flying to dot her cheeks. Each step needed to be faster, and she needed to be quicker. A tunnel ahead cut through this one horizontally. Her hands fumbled for the blades at her sides, her grip tightening on them. Each breath sliced into her throat, sharp and decisive despite the way her mind buzzed, buzzed, buzzed.

  Those splashes behind her grew louder.

  The Butcher closed in. Ellie tried to stifle the fear that grew like a rising tide in the back of her mind. All she could see was the contorted body of the Shadow Dealer pinned to the wall. Mother’s empty bed. The first victim who had been mangled to pieces with neat slices striped up and down her torso.

  Part of her couldn’t help but wonder if she’d stolen from the wrong body, if this was the one risk too many to bury her.

  Mere seconds would decide that fate.

  The cross tunnel lay feet away. Ellie launched forward, arms whipping back and forth as she propelled herself in its direction. Her wild waves of hair stung her cheeks as she vaulted at top speed. Ellie couldn’t risk glancing back again—not when the Butcher was gaining on her.

  His breaths came out in heavy huffs, a slight wheeze to each one, and his footsteps echoed loud enough to drown out the sound of her hammering heart. Any minute now, he’d catch up.

  And she’d played into his hands, isolating herself
from friend, lover and family.

  Ellie reached the tunnel.

  She lunged to the left. Once she launched herself through the corridor, she pivoted on her heel, turning around to face the man.

  The Butcher skidded to a halt at the cross-section, mere feet away. His dead eyes gleamed in the light of her orb that she dropped to the water. The scent of sulfur and mildew crawled over her skin, but she didn’t know if it was him or this place. Something this evil might not have been born here, but he’d been shaped in this dark underground.

  A long, wicked blade peeked out from each side of him. She backed up a pace, then another. The Butcher took the cue to move forward the same amount. He’d played a careful dance from the moment he began to track her, never rushing in and always, always calculating.

  His grip tightened on his daggers, like a mirror of her own. Her stomach churned at being so close to this monster. She’d met many a foul man and woman, murderous blokes, pitiful meaters and scoundrels of every shape and size, but she’d never met someone filled with this level of inhuman malice. This close to him, the oil slick of his presence clung to her skin.

  “Why me?” Ellie asked, her voice somehow breaking through the impenetrable wall of silence between them. “Why any of them?”

  The Butcher took another step forward. A few feet more and he’d be in slicing distance. A quavering smile upturned his lips, one that didn’t reach those lifeless eyes.

  “The others fascinated me,” he said. His voice held a reediness mixed with the skittering scrape of spiders crawling across stone. Ellie found herself adequately repulsed. She tightened her slick grip on her blades. “However, you weren’t simply fascinating. You stole the legacy I’ve worked a long, long time to build.” His gaze landed on hers, and she had to look to the left.

  Ellie swallowed hard. “If fame and fortune’s all you’re after, I’d be chuffed to hand the title of Butcher right back over to you. I haven’t been keen on all the mutton shunters trailing after me in the first place.”

  He shook his head, the motion slow and deliberate. “Once I deliver your body to the lawmen, all London will realize what a force the Butcher of Broad Street truly is.” His grin widened, revealing slimy grayed teeth. “Though I’d enjoy this far more if you want to keep running for your life.”

  Ellie’s jaw clenched tight as she scanned for the slightest opening. This monster wouldn’t make the first move. Not unless her back was turned.

  She refused to give him any further satisfaction.

  They’d been playing his games from the start, until her veins buzzed with a constant state of paranoia, until her heart started and stopped so many times she felt like she’d been resurrected, until her worst fears realized before her eyes.

  He scanned over her, slow and painstaking. A shudder rolled down her spine.

  “We can take as long as you like,” the Butcher murmured, his raspy voice crawling beneath her skin. “Even if you attempted to fight me, it won’t bring back your mother.”

  No. No, no, no.

  Ellie staggered back a step as those words hit like a slap. Her mind roared with every fear she’d been shoveling away until now. That the last time she’d seen Eleanor Whitfield had been a brief dinner conversation as she harangued her mother until she’d taken her medicine.

  All Ellie could see was the wizened eyes that saw right through every flagrant lie she told, the ones that crinkled in amusement at her and Theo’s antics. The woman held the patience of a flickering candle through the longest night, and both she and Theo would die to keep her flame alive.

  Her world dizzied around her, and for a moment, all she could smell was the stale packed earth, the must of that basement.

  The Butcher moved a step closer.

  The motion alone pulled her out. She was spinning, spinning, spinning out of control, but when he moved, Ellie’s body responded.

  Her calves flexed as she lunged in his direction, and she swung her blades out.

  Ellie’s mind blanked into a numbed fury that she surrendered to. She brought her blades down, the points seeking the pale exposed flesh along the neck of the Butcher. Before they could sink in, he brought one of those vicious daggers up to deflect. The Butcher skidded back, water sloshing between them. The grinding squeal of metal against metal reverberated through the sewers.

  She stepped back, giving her wrists slack.

  The dagger descended.

  Ellie brought both of her blades up in a cross-sweep to defend. The weight he slammed into his blows almost caused her knees to buckle, but Ellie didn’t try to hold the position. She let the dagger drop, the slice of the tip stinging. Still, Ellie used the second of delay to pivot around to his left.

  This close, she could smell his fetid breath, as rotten as the sewers he slunk through. Those limpid eyes flashed in the dim light from the orb floating on the surface of the water. Ellie lashed out again, the tip of her blade slithering in to bite.

  The edge sank past the fabric of his tattered frock coat and squished into skin.

  Too late, Ellie caught the tilt of his lips in a smile.

  His hand clamped around her wrist, his grip like an iron manacle. He shoved forward so her feet swept out underneath her. At a dizzying rate, she could see the steps play out. Splash to the ground. He’d overpower her, a rank stench surrounding her. Then his daggers would come out to play.

  Too bad for him he’d chosen a street scrapper for his latest target.

  Before Ellie’s back hit the ground while his grip still wrapped around her wrist, she pulled her knees up tight. Ellie used the leverage of his grip as she dropped like dead weight. She thrust her feet forward, slamming the edges of her boots right above his kneecaps. The Butcher stumbled, letting go his grasp.

  Ellie tumbled to the ground, rocking up to her feet. She sank into a crouch as she circled him. He let out a low curse and lashed out a little faster this time, the heavy dagger cutting the space between them. Ellie barely stepped back in time, the edge of the blade splitting the fabric of her sleeve and nicking her skin. The sight of the dagger, the weight of it and the thickness of the edge brought to mind all the methodical slices he’d placed in each of his victims.

  Her heart thundered, her lips were dry as talc and her adrenaline dizzied her mind, but Ellie kept swinging. She couldn’t stop to think for a moment about the future, not when survive, survive, survive chanted like a mantra in the back of her mind.

  Ellie ducked lower and lashed out with her blade again. The tip glanced against his shinbone, but the monster didn’t even grimace.

  Because a second later, he brought his long, stalky leg upward in a kick. The edge of his boot thudded her square in the solar plexus, causing her to stumble onto her rear in the fetid water. A sharp, shooting pain thundered through her and the breath snagged in her throat. The silver flash of the descending dagger in the dim light saved her.

  The moment it careened her way, Ellie dropped to the ground and rolled to the side. The dagger swung overhead like a reaper’s scythe, and the Butcher’s ragged breaths hissed through the air. Ellie rolled on her tailbone to spring back to her feet, the water sloshing around her and the oily sheen from the surface weighing down her sodden clothes.

  The Butcher’s movements grew frantic, and he brought the dagger in with a frenzy, like the sickness inside this man had spread. Her chest throbbed as she dodged by a breath swing after swing after swing. His pale eyes glazed with a madness that terrified her deep to her core. Ellie bobbed and wove around the wide arcs of the beast of a dagger, soaking in the details of each move, how he sank his shoulders into each one, relying on his upper body strength.

  Ellie’s breaths shuddered as she tried to keep up with the accelerated pace of his swings. Her knees tensed again and again and again as she crouched to duck or dropped to the ground when the dagger swung overhead. Her mind reeled, all thought abandoned as she focused on the threat before her. He sliced down with a severe arc. The second one of those blows landed, it w
ould incapacitate her.

  The dagger whizzed by, an inch away from her throat. A droplet of sweat slithered down her forehead.

  Ellie’s world shuddered around her at the closeness of death before her, reflected in those pale eyes and sallow face. His graying teeth bared in that mad smile, and before she realized, she stepped an inch away from the wall.

  He was backing her into a corner.

  Once her back hit the wall, her avenues of escape minimized, and this man calculated his advantages.

  If she was going to seize an opportunity, it had to be now.

  He lifted his arms and his body lurched forward, giving the tell of his next move. Ellie’s throat grew dry as bone, but this time as the dagger sped before her, she followed the trajectory and didn’t dodge.

  Closer.

  Closer.

  The tip sped for her throat. In the stillness before the blow, she could see how he curled into the movement, and the world slowed around her.

  At the last second, Ellie dropped and drove her blade forward.

  It sank into flesh.

  With those broad, heaving swings, the Butcher of Broad Street left his gut wide open. His dagger snicked off several strands of her hair as it whipped by, but from her crouch, she launched herself forward to drive her blade in even deeper. Blood dribbled from the wound, the sticky fluid coursing down her palms, but she dragged her blade up, down, anywhere she found give. An inhuman groan came from the Butcher as he spluttered.

  He swung his dagger down again. Ellie let go of hers to dodge, but the edge sliced into her shoulder past the fabric of her shirt to split open her skin. She gritted her teeth as she hopped back and balanced the blade in her other hand. The Butcher reached down and plucked the one in his chest out, and more crimson blood gushed from the open wound.