Beneath Ceaseless Skies #135

by Holly Messinger

  “I don’t have to recognize him,” Lily said, with grim pleasure. “He’ll recognize me.”

  * * *

  “Bitch,” the killer breathed, his eyes lifting from her scars to her face. “So you did survive.”

  “So did you,” Lily observed. “Jack, isn’t it? Jack Nolan? Northam? I know it’s not ‘Nemo.’ When did you learn Latin, Jack? Last I saw you, you could barely speak English.”

  “I’ve evolved,” he said, grinning, and lunged at her.

  She saw the knife appear in his hand; she had been expecting it. But he was faster than most, and his attack was startlingly efficient. She flowed away from the blade as it nicked past her throat but felt a hot line slice across her left shoulder. She caught his arm, drove it down and slashed at him with her own blade. He twisted back, and the point of her knife laid his cheek open to the bone. He threw himself away from her with a snarl, and they repelled to opposite corners of the room, watching each other warily. Lily felt warmth trickling down her arm but didn’t dare look at the damage.

  “You grew up,” Jack said, still grinning despite the blood running down his face and the utter lack of expression in his eyes. His teeth were the stuff of nightmares—filed to points, the canines unnaturally long. Wolf... or maybe hyena. Moreau had been fond of the larger predators, but she hadn’t thought he’d stoop to operating on his human lackeys. “You always were a vicious little cunt.”

  “I’m flattered you remember me,” she said, calculating his reach, the distance between them, and the likelihood that the wall would collapse beneath their combined weight if he threw her into it. “Do you remember any of the others?”

  “You sprouted tits. Think I’ll cut ‘em off before I cut your throat.”

  “Come on, then,” Lily said quietly.

  He moved in, not charging, not stupid; feet sure and elbows close to his body. He’d probably been in a few warfside brawls even before the benefit of Moreau’s improvements. There was something wrong with his left hand, the one he was using to feint at her—the fingers were short and stubby, gnarled.

  He pivoted suddenly and came in low with the knife hand. She curled away and cut upwards, slashed the tendons of his wrist. He yowled and his knife clattered to the floor, but that gnarled left hand proved to be very quick and tipped with claws that sank like hot needles into her wrist. He trapped her knife arm across her body and shoved her into the wall; the thin partition at her back cracked and shuddered but held.

  She curled her spine like a cat, braced both heels against his hips, and shoved. He staggered backwards; she took one long step after and hiked her foot into his groin. He doubled over, an almost comical look of shock on his face. She kicked out his knee, pivoted as he collapsed, and drove her heel down between his shoulder blades.

  She heard the crack.

  He slumped to the floor with a faint cough, as if surprised. Then he lay there wheezing, stunned, flailing his head in short circular movements like a whale she had once seen beached in Okinawa, unable to understand why his body was suddenly uncooperative.

  She stood over him for a second, breathing hard, listening for sounds of disturbance in the adjacent rooms. When she was sure he wasn’t getting up again, she went to the window. No one was staring or approaching in righteous concern. No one had come to help his last victim, either.

  She went back to the monster on the floor and pushed on his shoulder with the toe of one slipper. He fell onto his back, the lacerated right hand flopping at an unpleasant angle, the misshapen left groping about aimlessly, feebly.

  “Your spine is crushed,” she told him. “You can’t move. You may live, but you won’t ever move again.” She watched his left hand crawling across the floor. “You might move enough to feed yourself, if you try.”

  He was panting through his teeth, frantic with frustration and terror. In any other creature such suffering would have moved her to pity, but for this one she felt only cold satisfaction. She squatted beside him, hands dangling between her knees. “This is how it felt, you know. Being strapped to that table. Waiting for the knife.”

  “The knife made you what you are,” he snarled. “Moreau elevated you. You were a worthless chink whore’s whelp and he made you into a perfect being.”

  “Moreau made me a monster. Not chink, not gwai-lo. Not even human, by some standards.” The long teeth he bared at her were not wolf, as she’d first thought. Dog, perhaps. The gums were infected and angry. “I suppose he didn’t spare any of us.”

  She picked up his left hand, which had been carved into a crude approximation of a paw. The scarring was thick and some of it still raw, as if the incisions had been opened repeatedly, and recently.

  Perplexed, she pushed his sleeve up and found that the carving continued up his arm, in jagged lines with occasional raw bloody patches. It reminded her of the way a kenneled dog would gnaw its own leg out of distress and boredom. In horrified fascination she opened his collar and found the same mutilations on his chest and shoulders—raw cross-cuts in a childish parody of skilled knife-work.

  “Aiya,” she said, reverting to childhood oaths in her revulsion. “You’ve done this to yourself.” The flesh was so scored and thickened across his breast it looked like crocodile hide.

  His eyes glittered with the flames from the fireplace. “I am the Maker now. That fool Montgomery never had the stomach for the work. I alone have carried on Moreau’s vision.”

  Her mouth tightened in disgust. “I hope to God you’re the only one.” She stood up, away from him, and went to the cupboard beside the fireplace. She took down a valise and a good wool dress and cloak; there were clean rags in the valise and a bottle of carbolic acid. “I don’t remember the Doctor making such a mess of his work, far less leaving his messes for the authorities to find.” She doused a bandage with the carbolic and swiped it over her wounds, jaw clenched against the antiseptic burn.

  “Garbage is garbage,” he spat. “All you split-tails. Man was made in God’s image—woman is the parasite that must be cut from his flesh.”

  Lily shrugged into the new wool bodice, taking care to leave a pad of bandage pressed over her shoulder to blot the seeping cut. “It’s just as well I didn’t kill you. If you live long enough to go to Marleybone you may well make a career for some young alienist.”

  “You killed your Maker. You’re damned to hell.”

  “An interesting interpretation. In Christian theology, the killers of their god are redeemed by his death.” She bent to pick up her old clothes from the floor. She stuffed them into the valise, pinned on her hat, and swung the cloak about her shoulders.

  She debated for a moment whether to leave his bag and knives where they were—if he was found alive, would he confess to being the East End killer? Would he be believed? Or would it all be bungled or hushed up, as the rest of the matter had been? She decided it was none of her affair.

  “You think you escaped,” he hissed, as her hand was on the latch. “But you left part of you on the Island, just like the rest of us. Evil are the punishments of those who break the Laws! None will escape!”

  Lily cast a damning eye over his crumpled form, mutilated to match his wretch of a soul. “Not if I have aught to say about it,” she agreed.

  She closed the door firmly behind her and walked away into the night.

  * * *

  Lily decided to extend her visit through the end of the year, and on Christmas Day she accompanied Thérèse and several of the girls to the pantomime at Drury Lane. It was a predictably silly performance, led by two portly red-faced actors as The Babes in the Woods and the usual assortment of singing, dancing, cavorting man-beasts.

  Lily laughed and booed and applauded along with the rest of the audience, but there was something about the stage-wolf’s sly, animalistic movements that intruded on her peace of mind—either the actor was more skilled than his fellows or his costume was more convincing. The chaotic chase through the woods after the Babes likewise struck too close for comfort. Wh
en the Wolf abruptly pounced, letting out a fearsome howl, several of Thérèse’s girls jumped and shrieked with delight, but Lily found herself clutching the arms of her seat, rigid and aching with old fear.

  She was grateful when Thérèse took Lily’s gloved hand in her own and led her out of the aisle, out of the auditorium to the theater’s lobby, where there were few patrons and a good many gaslights.

  “I’m sorry,” Lily said, feeling both relieved and foolish as soon as she was away from the sight of that grotesque, too-real man-beast. She drew in deep draughts of chi, rotated her wrists and neck until the stiffness eased. “I’ve been surfeited with old memories, of late.”

  “Memories are insidious things,” Thérèse admitted. “Even now, I can catch a certain scent, a certain look of a man’s brow or the slope of his shoulders, and though I compose myself in public I may wake in the night with my fist between my teeth, trying not to scream the house awake.” She looked at Lily with sympathy, but no pity. “Do you even remember my waking you last night? You were crying out.”

  “I remember.” Lily’s jaw tightened. “I haven’t had the night terrors in months. Not even when I decided I was coming here.”

  Thérèse waited, but when nothing more was forthcoming she said, “My contact at the London Hospital says their paralysed mystery patient is still alive, although he is weakening from a bowel obstruction. He has been talking in his delirium—about men becoming beasts and beasts becoming gods, and woman being the destroyer of Eden so she must be destroyed.... I believe those were his words.”

  Lily made a harsh amused sound. “He learnt Moreau’s catechism well.”

  “Do you regret leaving him alive?”

  Lily shook her head. “He’ll be dead soon enough, and the doctors believe him mad. He can harm no one else with his words.”

  “He said nothing to upset you, then?”

  Lily laughed again. “His very existence offended me. The smell of him—my God. As soon as I took his arm on the street, I knew what he was. I just never imagined anyone could do that to themselves, would desire it for himself.” She turned to her friend, her voice low and raw. “Am I that damaged, Thérèse? I know you say I punish myself, but was some blood-lust built into me as well, that I must hunt and kill and feel nothing like remorse?”

  “I do not believe you are incapable of remorse, chérie. And if your lack of feeling for that monster is a defect, then I must share it in my own character.”

  Lily held tight to Thérèse’s hands, head bowed. Thérèse set an arm about her shoulders. “Come along. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  By the sudden flurry of voices and the flooding of people into the lobby, Lily realized the play was in intermission. Thérèse led her upstairs to the private boxes, to one in particular where the door was open and a distinguished-looking gentleman about Lily’s own age stood waiting for them. “Madame Stevick,” he said warmly, holding his hands out to Thérèse.

  She took his hands and kissed his cheek. “Hello, Frederick. Lily, this is Dr. Treves, from the London Hospital. He’s been keeping me abreast of our friend’s progress.”

  Lily shook his hand warily. “You are an alienist?”

  “I am a surgeon,” the doctor said. “I have a particular interest in physical aberrations—both natural and man-made. But you look as if you have been led into an ambush, Miss Quinn. I only asked Mrs. Stevick if she would bring you to meet my friend Mr. Merrick. She thought the two of you would deal famously together.”

  Puzzled, Lily could see the silhouette of a person in the depths of the box—an upright but misshapen person, whose bulbous head seemed precariously heavy for his slender neck. He turned toward her at the sound of his name, and her memory connected the name with an illustration she had seen in a newspaper months ago.

  “Yes, of course,” she said, and Dr. Treves ushered her into the box, where he introduced her to Joseph Merrick, lately known by his stage name as the Elephant Man.

  “I am delighted to make your acquaintance,” Lily said. “Are you enjoying the pantomime, Mr. Merrick?”

  His reply was laborious and unintelligible, due to the tumors distorting his jaw and lips, but his eyes were bright on her face and his bow over her hand was as correct as any gentleman’s. Lily took his answer for agreement. Then he asked her a question, and she looked to Dr. Treves for translation.

  “Mr. Merrick says he has travelled over much of Europe, but he has never been to the Far East. He wants to know how China is different from England.”

  Lily smiled and described the climate and land of southeastern China, and the port city of Shanghai, with its rich smells and sounds so different from the streets of London. Mr. Merrick gave her the impression of a bright child, listening avidly to fantasies. He asked polite questions, which by and large she was able to understand and answer.

  They talked avidly until the orchestra struck up again, signaling the end of intermission. Mr. Merrick thanked her for coming and wished she might visit him at the Hospital, if her time in London allowed.

  “It would be my great pleasure,” Lily said sincerely. “Would Thursday suit?”

  “Yeth... pleathe.” Mr. Merrick could only smile on one side of his face, but Lily was warmed through to the core, nonetheless.

  “Then I will do myself the honor of joining you for tea, Mr. Merrick. I hope you enjoy the rest of the play.”

  He bent quickly to kiss the back of her hand—a damp, awkward kiss, like that of a favorite nephew—and Lily felt tears spring to her eyes. She smiled at Mr. Merrick, and he at her, in perfect harmony.

  Lily and Thérèse took their leave of the gentlemen, and as they descended the stairs from Dr. Treves’s box, Lily took her friend’s arm and squeezed it once, in gratitude.

  Thérèse patted her hand.

  Copyright © 2013 Holly Messinger

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  Holly Messinger started writing Madeleine L’Engle fanfic in the third grade, and by the time she got her BA in English, had written more than a million words of original fiction. Her stories inevitably feature snarky female anti-heroes. Her first novel, The Curse of Jacob Tracy, about a psychic cowboy and the mysterious bluestocking who sends him into mortal danger, is due out from Thomas Dunne Books in July 2014. “End of the Line,” also featuring Jacob Tracy, appeared in Baen’s Universe. Her website is www.hollymessinger.com.

  Read more Beneath Ceaseless Skies

  YOUR FIGURE WILL ASSUME BEAUTIFUL OUTLINES

  by Claire Humphrey

  I spent every day of my first decadi in Savaurac staring at the likeness of a girl on a notice for corsets. I figured she was long dead of the clap, or maybe she only ever lived in some garret artist’s absinthe-blind eye, but she was a very pretty girl: deep bosom, low waist, and the sable hair shared by most of her people.

  “Your figure will assume beautiful outlines.” That was written below her picture, along with the name of the corset-maker. The paper was pasted on the wall beside my Da’s special table, where he sat to score the matches. I sat there to labor over our application for residence, listening to the thump of fists on the training bags and running my fingertips over my knuckles, where the fight calluses were already softening.

  The fight club used old notices for wallpaper because it was a poor sort of place, same as why they strewed the floor with sawdust and the shells of nuts, and most of the tables had one leg shorter than the others. The owner, though, Mr. Karinen, had promised work for Da if we came to Savaurac, and so we had.

  The day I finished our immigration paperwork, Benno Karinen, the owner’s son, was going around the walls with a whalebone scraper, taking down the stained notices and pasting up fresher ones. When he got to where I sat, he went by me like I wasn’t anything, and set his paste bucket right on my table and his scraper to the top of the notice for corsets.

  “Leave that one,” I said.

  Benno looked down all haughty and went right back to scraping.
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  “I said leave it!”

  His whalebone tore right through the ribboned curls on the girl’s head.

  I stood up then. Benno was just above my height and three stone heavier. I hit out straight for his nose.

  Two decadis at least since I’d been in the ring last, what with packing up our things in Kervostad and getting set up here in Savaurac, and my fist had been getting thirsty for a face.

  I pulled Benno’s cork for him, blood raining down into the paste-bucket. I laughed out once before I could stop myself. Benno did, too, like he couldn’t believe it.

  “Da!” he said. “Da, come and see the straight on our Valma.” It came out a bit thick. He spat into the bucket and grinned at me with blood outlining his teeth. “Da, you didn’t tell me she was a fighter.”

  “Didn’t know it,” Mr. Karinen said, tossing his towel down and coming out from behind the bar. He eyed me from under a tangled ginger brow. “Well, little lady? How much do you weigh?”

  “I’m a welterweight, sir.”

  “Strapping girl, you have here, Igo,” he said to my Da. I tried to take my arm back, but he was still waving it. “How about it, Valma? Would you like to fight?”

  He held up an open palm for me to punch. I smacked my fist into it hard enough to make him wring his hand after.

  “Spirit, Igo,” he said, “she’s got your spirit. Let’s put her to spar with the lads tomorrow, see what she can do.”

  “Which I thought girls weren’t allowed in the ring here, sir,” I said. That much, Da had told me before we left, though I thought he only meant I would stop fighting before audiences, not that I would go without sparring or even bag-work.

  “By law, no,” Mr. Karinen said. “But there’s ways. For a girl raised by Igo Topponen, there’s ways.”

  My Da had taken the Kervostad Heavyweight Belt twice, when he was young. I could just barely remember: my Da with a lean-carved belly, sweat shining on him like oil under the galvanic lights of the ring. Someone holding his arm up high. Everyone shouting.