by Viola Carr
“Don’t mind if I do, sir, and you’re a real gent.” Now there’s some proper manners, aye . . . but too slender and curved, this cove. Those shoulders too narrow. The light’s dim, but Miss Lizzie ain’t blind.
The lady—for it’s a she—eyes me defiantly. A strange, unearthly face, as if her skin’s pulled taut with pins. Dark waistcoat, silver buttons, gold watch chain with garnets. A fat blond braid curls on her shoulder.
“To each her own.” I raise the bottle to her, and swig, dark brandy burning my tongue—and choke it down the wrong way.
That jeweled watch chain.
Looks like you can afford the best. Out front of Mrs. Fletcher’s, the night Johnny and me found Eddie there. This gent-rigged lady, checking her watch in torchlight.
A toff square-rigged with a funny face. A-waiting the other to get his load off, Saucy May had told Rose. Two girls who’d laid eyes on the Soho Slasher. Two girls who were murdered.
My hackles prickle. Carefully, I hand the bottle back.
She reaches for it. Across the back of her hand shines a trio of angry red scratches.
Saucy May’s fingernails, stuffed with her murderer’s skin. That crackbrain Todd, his mouth twisted with disdain. How careless.
It’s someone who loves him.
I lick dry lips. “Cheers, handsome. I’m for a card game. Top o’ the night to yer.” Casually, I retreat to the back bar, willing my legs steady.
As soon as I’m out of sight, I bolt for the side door, heart thudding.
The Slasher’s here, choosing his next ugly game. And that odd-faced lady’s waiting for him. Covering up for him. Ready to kill any witness to his crimes. His mother? His sister? A lover, even?
Don’t know, don’t care. If I can find him—if I can lure him into my clutches and make him show himself for what he is—then the Slasher’s caught and Eddie goes free.
So long as I can stay alive.
Upstairs to the cathouse, three at a time.
I reach the top, dread boiling black in my heart. Can’t hear no screams or kerfuffle. Perhaps I’m too late, and the Slasher’s next game is already bleeding out.
I burst into a sweat-stinking parlor, where girls are getting down to business. The redhead, the blonde, the fat, the skinny, and the in-between, the Magic Flute has the full house of cards, and follows every suit. Soggy mattresses, scraps of straw, a threadbare coat over splintery boards. Who needs a bed when you’ll only take a minute or two?
One lucky girl’s got a chair, and she spreads her thighs over greasy upholstery and stares dully at the ceiling while she earns her pennies from a pile of heaving male flesh. Drunken drool trickles from her lip.
The scene makes me queasy. Ain’t no pleasure in this. Just animal need, loneliness and desperation and hunger, dumb urges never understood nor satisfied. Ain’t no game. This is survival.
But the Slasher needs privacy for his bloody how-dos. A room of his own with a subject who don’t say no.
From the back floats laughter and a muffled scream.
Shit. I run, dodging jerking bodies and piles of torn flock. One bloke curses at the interruption. The girls don’t even look up. Guess they’re accustomed to a bit of yelling now and then.
At the back lurks a single private room, for those with extra coin. I push the flimsy pasteboard door open. A tiny mold-rotted attic, the cracked window stuffed with rags. A taper sheds thin, wavering light.
The bed boards are strewn with a blanket. On it sprawls a girl, legs bent awkwardly, eyes wet with terror. She screams again, but it’s choked and feeble. A bloodstained scrap of her own skirt is stuffed into her mouth.
Above her lurches a man waving a scrape-whetted knife. Naked but for a fine but dirty frock coat, his mud-brown elflocks hanging. Slobber shines on his half-witted leer. The girl whimpers and struggles, but he’s broken her legs so she can’t crawl away. Subduing his subject. Refining his technique.
It’s Baby-Face, the posh-spoken oral enthusiast from Mrs. Fletcher’s. The cove in fancy britches, what I spied outside my window in Soho that rainy night. My gent-rigged lady’s loved one.
I sprint at him, hoping for surprise. But the girl sees me, and makes frightened grunts, “Mmph! Hnn!” He whirls, that blade slashing.
We collide, and I claw for his eyes.
He howls, face wobbling like a rubber water bag . . . and changes.
Aghast, I stagger back. Flesh stretching, bones contorting into grotesque shapes. His fingers cramp and straighten, soft then gnarly, joints cracking like sticks. His ragged hair slithers, mingling with limp blond locks that thrash and wriggle. Muscles shudder in agony, he shrinks and swells and shrinks again . . . and out falls a pale, shivering, weeping whip of a lad.
It’s Bertie. The King of friggin’ England.
THIS SENSELESS DECAY
I GAPE LIKE A DEAD FISH. THE GIRL ON THE BED chokes on the rag. Bertie goggles at me, naked limbs shining, his mouth a little egg shape.
Creeping Jesus, Eliza. Did you imagine your hellbrew would make him a better man?
Grab him. Wring his skinny neck and end this horror.
Too late. He’s changing again, back and forth, a rubber ball against a wall, and he kicks his heels like a crippled leprechaun and flees.
But not for the door.
I skid, but before I can double back, Baby-Face—for it’s he again, hair matted with goat-stinking sweat—Baby-Face laughs like a gin-pissed hyena and hurls himself out the window.
Crash! Glass splinters everywhere, tiny wasp stings. He sails out into the street, skinny legs flailing. I grab the knife—can’t hold on with fingers cracking out o’ their sockets, eh?—and sprint to the sill.
But he’s gone. Vanished into the Soho night like an evil dream.
Swiftly I pocket the weapon and climb the sill to leap after. Then I remember the girl, drowning on her own blood.
I run to her, ease the clotted cloth away. She gasps, rattling, splurting bright blood. He’s cut out her tongue.
Swiftly I shove her out into the parlor. She’s a broken, red-soaked horror. “Take care of her,” I snap to whoever’s listening, and run down the stairs. Shove my way through the Magic Flute—that bitch in gent’s rig is gone, and so is Nose-Picker, and if it’s Dodger what set Eddie up I’ll sew his flabby hide into a sack and piss in it—and out into the street.
Baby-Face Bertie’s legged it long ago, but folks are still gawping and pointing, so I verily ken which way he staggered. His change will heal his wounds. If he broke his goddamn legs jumping out the window—hope it hurt, you rot-cocked rat—they ain’t broke no more.
Gaslights dazzle me as I run, searching fore and aft, port and starboard. Every eye looks menacing, every face a killer’s. After fruitless minutes, I stagger to a halt, hands on knees, trying to catch breath what’s sick with failure. My lungs burn, fiery as the terror in my soul.
It’s the god-rotted king.
King! King! The word rings dolefully in my head, like St. Sepulchre’s bells foretelling gallows day outside Newgate.
What now? Skip into Scotland Yard and sing, hello, crusher boys, you’ll have to let Eddie go! Because the Soho Slasher is a different King Edward, what lives at Buckingham Palace and licks the Philosopher’s plate for scraps! Yes! Call the Home Secretary and let’s arrest His Majesty for multiple murder! How’d you like THEM apples?
Rage rips at my flesh, wild and willing. If I scream Bertie’s guilt from the rooftops now, they’ll wring my pretty neck before you can whisper cover-up and Eddie will hang, his corpse dissected and the leftovers buried in unhallowed ground. Make no mistake, Edward Hyde’s a dead man.
Unless I fit up someone else.
Someone easy for the crushers to believe, so they won’t ask for much evidence.
Someone like a red-haired loon with a razor fetish.
Oho.
This dark idea consumes me, rich and redolent with irony, so deeply I barely realize where I’m headed until I bang up against the porch of the
tumbledown tenement where I live.
In our window, a single candle burns.
Gift horse, and all that. I leap up the steps, anxious to let Johnny in on my plan. If his fine fairy arse ain’t already nabbed by the Dodger, that is, or stabbed in the back by Tasty Mick or Three-Tot Polly, so like that rat-faced Sultan they can steal the loot Johnny promised ’em and betray us. Nothing like having friends.
My boots—Eliza’s boots, heavy and hard—clunk on the wobbly steps, and I blunder into our room. I can’t pull this off alone, and Eliza’s no bleeding help. I need Johnny more than ever.
A shadow stretches, monstrous hands grabbing for my throat.
I stumble back, petrified. My secrets cry to heaven, by God. It’s Mr. Todd himself, come to put me to a grisly end for my treachery.
But it ain’t Todd. Nor Johnny. Not even Jacky Spring-Heels playing a trick.
And Eliza swells in response, a shuddering shout, and bursts out.
Eliza reeled from the sudden change, darkness smearing to rainbows. Surely, her eyes deceived her.
But his scent, his warmth, his breathless kiss . . .
“Oh, my. I . . .” She backed up a step, stumbling over the cushions.
Face the worse for a beating, chestnut curls disheveled. But his hot blue eyes sparkled, and the smile he unleashed was pure sunlight. “God, I’ve missed you.”
She stammered, lost. Her lips tingled. Her heart ached. Her every rational cell rebelled. “B-but your letter. Liberté du Sang . . .”
“The only way to keep my cover, and my life.” Remy leaned against the cracked wall. He wore a rough russet coat and dirty linen, a woolen scarf muffling his throat. “They need to believe I truly belong to them.”
Her eyes burned with stupid, selfish tears. Damn it. She’d believed Remy’s letter. A confession, from the most honest, honorable man she’d ever known. Why wouldn’t she believe him?
“I can’t imagine how it must have hurt you.” For an instant, he let his gaze flicker. He never did that, not out of cowardice. Only fear of heartbreak. “I understand if you . . . well, I’ve no excuse. Je regrette . . .” He started in French, and corrected. “With my whole heart, Eliza, I’m sorry.”
Despair dwarfed her. For this accursed mission—for his vengeance—he’d have sacrificed everything. Their future. All their hopes.
All the mixed emotion of the last few days swelled up to drown her. The murders, the wedding, Edward Hyde, the Soho Slasher, Veronica Burton, Seymour Locke, that horrific vision of the future where the world was chaos and Remy was enslaved . . .
Smack! Her palm stung. She’d slapped him. Right across his ridiculously perfect cheek. “That’s for even imagining I might not forgive you.”
Disbelieving, he touched his face. “Eliza—”
“And this is for never taking me for granted,” she whispered, and pulled him into a kiss.
His surprised gladness thrilled her, a sparkling delight. “You humble me,” he murmured against her lips, and kissed her more.
Far too soon, she eased away. “So is this how we’re to meet? I confess I prefer Cavendish Square. Your butler pours an excellent bath.”
Remy flicked a restless glance out the broken window. “I need your help.”
“As always. I mean, of course, but . . .”
“They believed me. La Liberté du Sang. I’m one of them now. And the most terrible thing is about to happen.” He gripped her hands, kissed them. “I need you to go to the Philosopher. Persuade him to deploy every Enforcer he has. That project your scientists were trying so desperately to hide? It’s—”
“Yes, I know.” She clicked her tongue at his expression. “Really. It’s been almost a week. For what kind of feeble-witted bumbler do you take me?”
“Knew you’d unravel it.” His smile dazzled her. His breezy confidence in her—so glaringly opposed to her own black doubts—shamed her.
She waved carelessly. “Didn’t I mention it? The murderer was Seymour Locke after all. A future version of him, that is. Demonstrably insane. If you see him, shoot first and ask later.”
“Noted.” Remy’s smile twinkled again, but he soon sobered. “So you know about Veronica Burton’s treachery.”
“I’ve seen the future she creates. Locke dragged me along with him.” A chill jarred her bones. “It was awful, Remy. All that death and destruction. Those hideous sorcerers, they were . . . That is, they will . . .” She swallowed. I saw you, Remy. Chained to a sorcerer with death in your eyes. “I saw lycanthropes,” she admitted, “chained up as attack beasts, by a man with a withered hand. Is he . . . ?”
“La Bête. The one who corrupted François.” Remy poked the cold ashes in the grate with his foot. “It begins tomorrow. Beaconsfield’s victory speech. They’re planning multiple simultaneous attacks, for maximum destruction.”
“But that’s Locke’s plan! He has the machine. I saw him take it.”
A shrug. “In the future, the machine belongs to Liberté du Sang.”
Her eyes blurred with remembered horror. The shredded aether, groaning in pain. Wailing air, stinking wind, that horrid blood-drenched scaffold. “But what can we do? If the aether breaks down badly enough, the Enforcers will be useless anyway.”
“Not a moment to lose, then. You must go to the Philosopher now.”
“I suppose I can spare the time,” she joked, trying to keep it light. “Come with me. He’ll listen to you.”
Remy shook his head. “I can’t.”
“But—”
“I can’t,” he repeated. “He’s ceased to find me useful, Eliza. Enforcers raided the cellar at Waterloo Bridge. They took everything.”
“Oh, no.” The cage, the candles, those ugly magic spells. Veronica Burton had betrayed him. But her bones chilled. Was that true? Lizzie had broken in to that house. What if she’d been spied on? Followed by Royal informers? Was this all her fault?
A rueful smile. “Not just the wolf. Documents. My search for François’s allies. All my dealings with the sorcerers. It doesn’t look exactly patriotic.”
“But that was Foreign Office work.” It rang hollow. Lord Beaconsfield was part of the plot to sell Interlunium to the enemy. And now he led the Empire into war.
Remy shook his head grimly. “All deniable. I had to make it look convincing. All the evidence against me is there if they choose to see it.”
Defiantly, she folded her arms. “Then I’ll persuade the Philosopher to see it our way.”
But wild laughter threatened. How? Foil a gang of shapeshifting sorcerers, reveal the Prime Minister as a traitor, stop Remy being burned. Oh, and thwart a mad scientist with a time machine who wanted to end the world. All before eleven o’clock.
“In the meantime, you can’t stay here,” she added. “The Enforcers will find you.”
“Liberté du Sang have bolt-holes everywhere. I’ll go there until it’s done.”
“But you can’t return to them. Not when they’re poised to attack.”
He just looked at her. And the truth dawned, a poisoned sunrise.
“You and la Bête.” Her throat parched. “You’re doing it together. You’re helping him.”
“It’s what I do, Eliza. I’m an agent provocateur. It’s the only way I can thwart him.”
Her stomach roiled, sick. La Bête’s plan would surely be bloody. Violent. Murderous . . . and black suspicion needled her heart. “Remy, what happened with the Empire’s envoys? Were you there when la Bête killed them? God, did you kill them?”
“What? No. It’s not like that—”
“I saw you in the future!” Tears strangled her. How she hated crying. “You’re la Bête’s creature. His pet.”
A dark headshake. “The future can be changed.”
“Can it?” She swallowed hot hurt, but it bubbled back up with a vengeance. “I don’t think you want it to. That amulet. I thought you wanted a cure.”
“You know some evils can’t be cured.” But his gaze clouded, stormy with defiance.
Defensive.
She couldn’t bear that look. Too many secrets. Too many lies. “I know what that awful thing does, all right? It lets you change at will! If that’s what you want, why don’t you just take it?” Unthinking, she tugged at his scarf. “You’re wearing it now, aren’t you? Show me.”
“Eliza—”
The scarf tore away. Remy closed his eyes, sighing.
The glossy black stone gleamed, its half-moon a sly silver wink. She stared. Nodded grimly. Did a dry swallow. “So. You’re one of them. La Bête—”
“La Bête is a cockroach,” he said harshly. “A loathsome toad. But one thing he said resonated. He said, ‘Petit loup, you have a choice. You can feed him, or you can fight him—but whichever you choose, he will do the same to you.’ “ A rough shrug. “I’m tired of fighting, Eliza. I did this for us. Can’t you understand?”
She’d fought Lizzie for so long, desperate to deny the monster inside. Since she’d met Remy, he’d been her inspiration . . . and now he was failing her. Denial squeezed her. It was too heartbreaking to be true. But longing ached, too. So easy, to surrender to darkness. To embrace the taint in her blood and hang the consequences. To be Hyde, finally at peace . . .
“So you’ll give in just like that?” she said tightly. “Take the easy way out. Pretend it’s not part of you. Just slip on a trinket and everything’s fine.”
“That isn’t—”
“I’d carve out my heart to be free of this,” she hissed. “You’re a coward, Remy Lafayette. To think I envied you.”
He recoiled, as if she’d hit him.
Her heart wailed. She wanted to claw back what she’d said. Rake her nails down her face, hurt herself the way she’d hurt him. But the blood was drawn. The damage done. And the gulf between them had never seemed so wide.
“Call it what you like.” He spoke at last, and his frosty tone scraped her raw. “Just go to the Philosopher. Please. So much is at stake.”
She wiped her cheeks. “Of course. I understand. Remy, I’m—”
“You might need this.” Coldly, he offered his iron Royal Society badge. NULLIUS IN VERBA, the engraving read. See for yourself.