The Dastardly Miss Lizzie

by Viola Carr

  A smooth dark head peered out. “Dr. Jekyll?”

  “Perkins?” Eliza edged closer. “What’s wrong with everyone? Where’s Harley? I urgently need his help. It’s a matter of national security.”

  “He’s not here. Mr. Reeve—” Perkins glanced over Eliza’s shoulder, flushing.

  With a sigh, Eliza turned. “Chief Inspector.”

  “Superintendent.” Reeve beamed, chewing smugly on his cigar stub. “The position was vacant. Clearly I’m the best man for the job. Oh, and Griffin doesn’t work here anymore. I fired him.”

  “What?” Eliza’s brain clunked, frustratingly slow. “He just caught the Slasher!”

  “Not by any decent police work.” Reeve puffed out his chest, his oily brown suit glistening. Doubly unkempt, like a man unused to cleaning up after himself, and she recalled Perkins’s tip that Mrs. Reeve had thrown him out. Clearly the lady was stubborn. “Blunders about for weeks as bodies pile up, and just happens to show up when the bastard was drunk out of his mind? The Commissioner agreed it’s too much to be borne.”

  Fire ignited in her belly. “I’m sure he did. Poor Sir Stamford doesn’t know what year it is, let alone understand the corruption in his own department.”

  Reeve flicked his cigar, ash plopping. Did he ever actually smoke the horrid things, or just chew them to be disgusting? “Corruption, eh? Serious charge, that. Heard you had your doubts at that crime scene. Concealing evidence, they say. Anything you care to tell me?”

  She opened her mouth to retort, and shut it again, mortified.

  As much as she loathed it, cunning Mr. Todd had been right. Lizzie had proved that. Hyde wasn’t the Slasher, and Harley had arrested the wrong man. It hardly seemed an opportune moment to say so.

  “Nothing to say?” Reeve grinned. “Fine. You’re fired, too, and good riddance. Now get out.”

  Rage bubbled in her chest, overflowing. Not Lizzie’s, but her own. Exhausted, bitter, hungry for recompense for every humiliation she’d suffered at this man’s hands. “You jealous little rat. You can’t do that!”

  “Can’t I, just?” Reeve leaned into her face. “I ran Griffin out for being a mouthy weasel who didn’t know his place. I can surely get rid of you for hiding the fact that your father’s a murderer. Oh, yes,” he added, with a smug curl of lip. “I know all about you and Edward Hyde, esquire. Knew something was fishy about you from the start. Not only a trumped-up tart, but a bastard, too! Ho ho!”

  Self-disgust seared her cheeks, an ugly revelation. Like Veronica Burton, she’d betrayed her dearest principles and pretended she didn’t care. Sucked up every insult, sold her soul to get ahead—and look how she’d ended up.

  Never again.

  “Think your wife will love you any better now you’re promoted?” she hissed. “Think your daughters will be proud of you for destroying a good man’s career? You’re still the same wretched sycophant you were before. I’m surprised they can stand the sight of you.”

  Reeve’s cheeks suffused, and he swung his fist back.

  “Go on, hit me,” she snarled. “Prove what a man you are.”

  He caught himself, mustache shaking with rage—but shame burned, too, and it looked like murder. “Get out of my sight,” he growled. “If I see you on police premises again, I’ll bang you up with killers and rapists so fast your feet won’t touch mud.”

  He stalked away, smoke practically hissing from his ears. And just like that, her career was finished.

  Eliza squeezed her fists tight, red mist boiling over her eyes. Acting without care for consequences was Lizzie’s game. The urge to sprint after him and slam his nose back into his brain . . . She cursed, sick to her stomach.

  Why had she put herself in this position? Why hadn’t she told Griffin she knew Hyde was innocent? Why hadn’t she demanded Hyde be released? Why?

  Because you’re a coward, Eliza. Lizzie coiled like a snake in her darkest heart, forked tongue hissing—but her power seemed distant, a strange alien creature locked away behind prickly blue glass. I’d have given Reeve my mind long ago. Think you’re so fine with your god-rotted principles, but you’re just a common coward hiding behind hate.

  Behind the desk, Perkins winced. “That went well.”

  Eliza smiled weakly, the lie pasting itself easily across her lips. Aye, laugh it off. Pretend everything’s fine. S’what you’re good at, Eliza. “Goodbye, Perkins. And good luck.”

  Perkins’s face fell. “But you can’t go. I need you. Don’t leave me here alone.”

  Eliza just walked out, burning with her own ugly dose of shame. She’d failed Perkins as well as Harley. Anyone else? Good. I’ve no more pitiful weakness to spare.

  She emerged into the sunlit street, uncaring traffic hurtling by. Despair washed her will thin. No Enforcers, no police. No one to stop the invasion. And her list of friends was growing short.

  Finally, she stopped, and slumped against the brick wall of a notary’s office, exhausted. She closed her eyes, blocking out that joyless, glaring sun—but still the accusing stares of passers-by seared into her flesh. Coward. Liar. Failure.

  What now? She could think of only one place to go for help . . .

  “Are you ready?” A rose-scented whisper tickled her ear.

  She jerked, clocking her head on the bricks.

  Mr. Todd tipped his hat with a scarred fingertip. His coat—Venetian red—was a splash of sunlit blood. Casual as you like, half a block from Scotland Yard, his burned face an awful work of art.

  She dragged in a breath to yell.

  “You’re welcome,” he cut in swiftly, with a merry eye-twinkle. “For Edward Hyde, I mean. It was nothing. Shall we go? I hear Constantinople’s lovely at this time of year.”

  Mentally, she cursed, kicking herself. But she had to know. “What do you mean, sir?”

  “The Soho Slasher, at last behind bars! Capital. Most excellent. Couldn’t have done it without you.” An enchanted smile. “Well, I suppose I could simply have killed him—the man did lock me in a cage, after all, which I confess didn’t do wonders for Shadow’s mood—but that exquisite artist’s touch is so important. Don’t you agree?”

  “What? No . . . What are you talking about?”

  “Miss O’Hara, of course. You were vacillating the last time we spoke, you wanted your father taken care of. I owed you an apology for my ill temper. Now we can start afresh, just you and I.” Meticulously, Todd adjusted his diamond-pinned cuffs. “Now, time is somewhat of the essence, so if you don’t mind, we must run for our train—”

  “Stop.” Her head throbbed with distant echoes of Lizzie’s rage, like a garbled phonograph recording, unintelligible and useless. Rose’s nightmare murder scene, the spilled liquor, those gore-spattered glasses. Three glasses. More than two people. Hyde’s intoxicated state, that odd scent of aniseed and bitterness. Not gin or whisky. Absinthe and cognac. Todd’s favorite—but sharpened with laudanum.

  A mickey finn, as Lizzie would say. Todd had drugged Hyde. Made his wicked art, and left Hyde at the blood-soaked scene of his crime. Poor mad Bertie hadn’t even visited Soho that night. No, he’d been at his party at Buckingham Palace, slurping birthday toasts and throwing cake.

  “You killed Rose,” she stammered. “Why, for God’s sake?”

  “For you, my sweet.” A besotted green glow. Not insane. Frighteningly lucid. “Everything is for you. How else can I prove we belong together? I never believed that fool Reeve, I want you to know that. When he insisted you betrayed me, I mean. He seems to think we engaged in some sordid carnal liaison that addled my wits. The man’s positively prehistoric . . . Eliza, whatever’s the matter?” He touched her chin, gentle and terrifying.

  “Get away.” She edged back, pulse pounding. His touch—that dry crackle, his dark scent of roses and burned skin—set cold worms squirming in her veins.

  “Don’t play.” Todd’s eyes darkened. “You saw the evidence I left you. You ignored it. You’ve no job, no friends, and, dare I mention it, no la
pdog fiancé to make you pretend.” He brightened, sweetness and starlight. “Your old life is gone. You needn’t lie anymore. Now come along, we’ll be late.” And he offered her his hand.

  She gawped at it, speechless. In his own twisted mind, Todd had presented her with a choice. And she’d accepted. She’d let Hyde be arrested. And now Todd thought . . .

  Clarity hit her like pre-dawn thunder.

  She backed away, fresh energy hardening like diamonds in her heart. Her vanity—nay, cowardice—had brought her to this. Never again.

  “I will never come with you, Malachi Todd.” She caught his gaze, and held it. “I will never be like you. Now leave me be.”

  And she raised her shaking hand to point.

  Aghast, Todd stared, his mangled face pale. “Don’t,” he whispered. “Please, Eliza. Don’t do this. You know I love you.”

  “Police!” Her yell sliced the chilly air like a trumpet blast. “Arrest that man! He’s Razor Jack! Murder!”

  For a heartbeat, the world stopped. Todd’s gaze glittered, awash with jeweled tears.

  Then people screamed and scurried. Whistles blew. Voices took up the cry. “Murder! Police! Murder!”

  Up the street, shouts rang out as uniformed officers spilled from Scotland Yard. Boots thumped the paving. People gasped and yelled, the crowd closing in.

  And in a blur, Todd erupted.

  Steel flashed in cruel-bright sun. Bones crunched. A woman screamed. A body fell with a wet sigh, and the cobbles gleamed afresh, a hot crimson splash of blood.

  “Murder! After him!” A running man jostled Eliza, knocking her to her knees. She scrambled up, appalled—but like a malevolent ghost plotting revenge, Mr. Todd had vanished.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, she rapped on the glass door of Finch’s Pharmacy. “Marcellus, it’s Eliza. Let me in!”

  On New Bond Street, pedestrians hustled to and fro amidst carriages and carts, dustmen and costermongers, slipping and sliding on the wet road. An Enforcer patrolled, hand twitching to its pistol, and hastily Eliza hid her face as it clunked by. Dogs snarled, electric servants ran and chattered. Just another morning in London. Fragrant horse dung, coal smoke, hot aether engines, yells and whistles and rattling coach wheels. Even the feeble sunlight looked bored.

  As if the city had no idea this was the last normal day.

  She knocked again, more urgently. Time to make amends. “Marcellus? I’m sorry for the unkind things I said. I didn’t mean it. We need to talk.”

  No reply, the paper blinds drawn.

  Desolation chilled her. Finch was her last remaining friend. What else to do but go to the Prime Minister’s speech and wait for the end? For Mr. Todd to ambush her and exact his bloody revenge?

  Under the little porch, the door leading to the private living quarters above the shop was ajar. She pushed. It squeaked open. “Marcellus?”

  No answer.

  She trotted up the narrow steps. Perhaps he’d wandered out to get supplies, and left the door open in error. Or she’d find him asleep in his chair after forty-eight hours poring over his crucibles. Immersed in some new acquisition for his library, or simply gazing out the window, oblivious to the real world.

  At the top, the door to his reading room hung open. From inside came agitated muttering. “I’m such an idiot! It isn’t disappearing, eh? It’s temporal displacement! Astonishing! Just as Quentin told him, but did the stubborn old fool listen? Of course he didn’t!”

  “Marcellus, it’s me. Sorry to intrude—”

  “Wait! Don’t come in! Not safe, say what?” A scuffle, a series of clunks, the oddball whirring of strange machinery, and the stormy tang of aether. “Stop that at once, you beastly gadget! How dare you—eeergh!”

  Silence punched her ears, deafening.

  Light, brighter than the sun, her heated spectacles scorching her eyes. Limbs wrenching, muscles protesting, the dizzy sensation of flying.

  Was that Lizzie, calling her name? She couldn’t see. Couldn’t think. Eliza . . .

  Crack! Her skull hit the stairs. Groggily she tumbled, and the world cracked in two and shimmered to weightless black.

  Eliza.

  My lips move, soundless.

  Eliza!

  I jerk upright. Her voice, my voice. Her name, but my name.

  Beneath me, something moves. A body. Who the hell is that? I scramble down crunching steps, towards a tiny landing and a door with shattered glass. The steps at Finch’s. Something exploded, she fell . . . and my eyes light on the sprawled body.

  Dirty gray skirts, a fall of unpinned blond hair. Her face bruised and bloodied, mouth slack in unconsciousness.

  My pulse hammers. I look down at myself. Same gray skirts, same ripped bodice—but those dark curls tumbling down are mine.

  Jesus fucking Christ.

  We’re two.

  TWO, by God. Blown apart in Finch’s wacky explosion. That prickly blue brew WORKED.

  Raucous laughter swells my chest. My chest, God rot you. Mine! My laugh, my legs twitching into a joyful jig. I’m me!

  My blood pumps hard, outrageous exultation, and it feels so good I almost swoon. No more Eliza, whining at my choices, cringing at my mistakes, jumping out to make me stop having fun. What caused this, Lizzie? How long will it last? Here, let me list all the terrible things that might possibly happen.

  Ha! Who fucking cares, that’s how. I dance down the steps, yelling a joyous war cry. “Whoo-harr! Miss Lizzie’s here!”

  She most certainly is. And she knows exactly what she’ll do now. What we should’ve done all along.

  Since when was saving the world my job? They can fuck right off, creepy Withered Arm and his mad-arse princess. I’m sick to my heart of doing what other people want. Eliza, Remy, Henry, Finch. They can all go to hell.

  Save your own damn world, Eliza, if you’re so clever. You and your fucking Philosopher deserve each other. So busy saving yourselves, you forget about the little people. People like me and Eddie Hyde.

  Hyde . . . Hyde . . . The name slithers, a sigh on the back of my neck. I whirl, fists up to fight.

  No one. I punch my temples, gritting my teeth. God-rotted voices. Keep it down, can’t you?

  Hyde . . . Hyde . . .

  I know who ’tis, see. That hissing creature in the black bottle. Long before Eliza could hear, it whispered to me, rocking me from my slumber. The blind hunger that lured young Byron Starling off his narrow, the empty rage that stabbed a blade into his eye just to watch him scream. The elixir’s starry pleasure, that sultry midnight when Eddie first showed us his tricks. The eager giggle in my throat, the impulse that grabbed little Johnny Wild by his dirty black hair and planted one on his fresh young lips in the rain. And other mad and marvelous ideas, all those precious nights since.

  Always trying to trick me. Well, I won’t have it. You can fuck right off, elixir. Don’t need you no more! Ha ha!

  I don’t need you. What wild, wonderful words.

  But my drumming pulse won’t calm. My aching flesh won’t ease. Because one thing the creature always has is a plan. A craving. A burning desire for gratification. And now I’ve no Eliza to stifle its need.

  I settle down, quiet-like, and listen. Yes. Hmm. I like it. My idea all along, in fact.

  A cool whisper of other invades my delight. An arrogant imperative, like old Fairfax from the asylum. Don’t listen to it. This isn’t you, Lizzie. You’re losing your mind, just like your father. You’re losing control.

  But I’m too busy dancing to the lucid waltz of hatred playing in my heart. For the Slasher, for Charley Tee-Hee, for Letitia Fletcher and Malachi Todd and everyone in this cold and crippled world what uses us for their pleasure. They’ll get theirs, oh, aye. I’ll come for them, some bright-lit night when they’re off their guard. And I’ve reserved a special, lurid place in my imagination for the Dodger, that greasy-arsed fuckjob. I’ve plans for him.

  But first things first.

  I slip my hand into my pocket
, and bring out sharpened steel. The Slasher’s knife, cold, smooth, grinning with unsated hunger.

  I won’t let Eddie hang. That evil little fart Bertie is responsible for this. And I mean to make him squirm.

  I’m my father’s daughter, after all. There’s murder in my blood. Can’t make people do much, not I—but sure as hell I can make ’em die.

  Oho! You’d think assassinating a king would be the all-time coopered lay. Lucky for me, I know right where he’ll be, in, oh, about an hour’s time—and with chaos aplenty to distract. Nothing like a sense of occasion.

  On the stairs, Eliza moans softly, stirring.

  No time to lose, Miss Lizzie.

  My fingers tighten around that chilly blade. I could do it. Slice Eliza’s throat like Malachi Todd always wanted, bathe us in crimson, watch her last breath bubble to silence.

  But I won’t. Eddie would never forgive me. He always loved her best. Truth is, he never wanted me, not really. For Eliza, he’d give everything. For Eliza, he traded his own soul, that shadowy midnight long ago. And she spat it back at him like a mouthful of bile.

  So fuck her. Let her live with what we’ve done.

  A delighted giggle froths in my chest—mine, or that crafty elixir’s? I can’t tell the difference—and I tiptoe out the shattered door and away.

  Groaning, Eliza opened her eyes. The steps to Finch’s rooms blurred into view, strewn with splinters and broken glass.

  Could have sworn she’d heard a voice . . .

  Finch. Oh, God.

  She struggled to her feet and hobbled up the stairs, wincing at a twisted ankle. The door had blown off its hinges, a chunk of the landing gone with it. Coughing, she waved away dust.

  The room was ruined. Walls blasted, furniture crushed. Whatever experiment he’d been trying lay in a wasteland of shriveled wire and melted glass—and on the floor, face-down, sprawled Marcellus Finch.

  She skidded to his side. Blood trickled from his dusty white hair. Unmoving. Not breathing. She felt for a pulse. Nothing. His head fell to one side, baby-blue eyes staring. Dust drifted into them. He didn’t blink. Sightless. Dead.

  Uselessly, she fought tears. Why couldn’t she do something? Wasn’t she a physician? What was the god-rotted point?