by Tim Pratt
Ellie stood and adjusted her hat. The false curls pinned underneath matched her own hair color nicely, but they made the back of her neck itch. It would be months before her hair grew in. Oh well. She’d get a decent article out of it, at least, though she needed to write up the notes she’d hurriedly scribbled the night before into something more formal. But she no longer cared much about writing a bit of fluff about the secret interior of the clockwork brothels. She was on the scent of a real story now.
She pondered for a moment, watching the ducks. Lord Pembroke was investigating murders by the river, and Value was helping him, which suggested that the murders somehow intersected with Value’s interests, or his territory. She decided to stop by the office and speak to a certain reporter who had close ties to the police. He might be able to point her in the right direction to further her inquiries. Not that Ellie doubted Lord Pembroke’s promise to give her an interview, but she could hardly just take his word for things…
Pimm shivered in the shadow of a grimy brick building, not far from the stinking breadth of the Thames. The river was the mother of London, but progress had not been kind to her course. The healthy old river stink of Pimm’s youth had been replaced by something more acrid and sharp. Portions of the river glowed at night, now, covered by scums of weird luminous algae, and there were rumors among the mud-larks who scavenged along the river about strange creatures dwelling in the depths, occasionally tearing oars from the hands of boatmen, or pulling an unwary tide-waitress from the slimy shore. Miss Skye had written a story about that subject, hadn’t she, in the paper recently? Pimm would have to remember to read it, if Freddy hadn’t thrown it out. River monsters indeed. But on this particular night, Pimm was on the watch for more mundane threats.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t concentrate on keeping his eyes open for a killer. He was thinking about Ellie Skye instead. Policemen generally hated journalists, since they poked their noses in where they didn’t belong, interfered in ongoing cases by calling public attention to said cases, and were generally never satisfied with whatever answers they received. Pimm wasn’t very fond of journalists as a class, either, because his family was willing to tolerate almost anything from him, as long as he conducted himself quietly—they could accept eccentricity, so long as that eccentricity was wed to discretion. But the younger brother of a Marquess dabbling in criminology was the sort of story reporters loved, and Pimm had resigned himself to smiling affably and giving all credit to the police whenever a reporter spoke to him. He wasn’t sure such deflection would work with Miss E. Skye. She might not go away satisfied with such platitudes. Worse, he was afraid he wouldn’t want her to go away. Skyler clearly had a lively mind to go with her lovely face, and if she had more curiosity than was good for her, well, so did Pimm himself. He could hardly fault her for—
“There,” Big Ben murmured. “He’s a dodgy-looking fellow, isn’t he?”
Pimm looked over. A man in a long overcoat scuttled along, keeping close to the shadows, looking around nervously, starting to approach some of the women lingering in doorways and cooing from alleyways, then retreating and hurrying farther along. Pimm shook his head. “No, he’s too dodgy, that would make any girl nervous and watchful. According to your man Mr. Adams none of the bodies showed any sign of a fight, apart from the marks on the throats of those he choked. Our man is confident, and will surely seem comfortable and experienced. He gets close, and takes control quickly, with a rag doused in ether, or knocks them down before they can cry out and smothers them.”
“Sounds a right cold bastard,” Ben opined.
“Coldness in a killer can be worse than heat. The hot-blooded killer usually only kills once, in a flash of terrible fury. After the deed is done, the violence flows out of them—just leaks away. Often, the police can take such men without any trouble, and sometimes the killers are already weeping over the damage they’ve done. But the cold ones…” Pimm shook his head. “They might commit any atrocity you can imagine, and think nothing of it afterward.”
“Perhaps you’re right about it being an employee, then,” Ben said. “Mr. Value does hire some cold bastards.”
“Do you count yourself among that number, Ben?”
“Me?” The big man sounded surprised. “No, sir. I’m a victim of circumstance, me, and such crimes as I’ve committed have always been crimes of heat. I was a respectable lad, once, in service at a great house. My sister was a parlor maid. Pretty, she was… until the young master tried to take a liberty with her, and she resisted. He slashed her across the face with a knife, left a terrible scar, and blinded her in one eye. I was only fifteen, but already fairly big, and I doted on my sister, I did. When I saw what the lord’s son had done…” He shrugged. “I didn’t kill him. But he will never walk right again. No one could prove I was the one that done it, I made sure of that, but everyone knew anyway, so I had to flee. I came here, and I’ve worked for a lot of nasty fellows ever since. Mr. Value is no worse than most, I suppose.”
“Ben, that’s terrible, I—”
“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” Ben said. “We have a job to do, don’t we?”
And so they waited, Pimm doing his best to keep a watchful eye while at the same time not watching women disappear into alleyways with men. He liked women as much as anyone, and he’d been to some of the nicer brothels once or twice—though not since his days at Oxford—but what pleasure could there be in rooting in an alleyway? Then again, his working day didn’t involve hauling crates or laboring in a factory, and he had more to look forward to at home than stinking rooms filled with children he barely knew and a wife who was probably none too pleased to see him come home. Perhaps a moment of pure, unthinking, convulsive pleasure was the best men such as these could hope for, and attractive enough to overcome the fear of the Affliction. There were only several hundred verified cases over the past few years, though there were surely many more that had never been reported to the medical establishment.
This kind of alley work couldn’t be much fun for the women, though. He’d heard there were some girls in this business who genuinely enjoyed the work—or at least found it less objectionable than other forms of labor—but he couldn’t imagine any woman going to work for Abel Value in these ugly alleyways with any motivation other than total desperation.
A shrill whistle sounded thrice, and Ben and Pimm raced together in the direction of the sound. Two short blasts, and one long, the agreed-upon signal for catching the murderer in the act. Sound bounced around damnably among the cramped taverns and warehouses in the area, but Ben seemed to know precisely where the sound had come from, so Pimm went along at his heels. Perhaps it was a false alarm—Value’s men were on edge—but if not, Pimm dearly hoped he’d be able to prevent Value from killing the murderer. The perpetrator needed to be taken to the police, if only because his victims surely had families, and they deserved to know the killer had been caught. If the man didn’t confess, the girls would simply be presumed to have disappeared, gobbled up by the streets of London, and wasn’t uncertainty even worse than the knowledge that you’d lost a daughter or sister?
They found the whistle-blower gasping and clutching his forearm, leaning on a wall near the motionless body of a red-haired girl, lying face-down in an alley. “Bastard had a knife, he cut me,” Value’s man said, removing his hand to reveal an open gash on the meaty part of his bicep.
“Which way did he go?” Pimm said.
The man gestured, and Ben shook his head. “Never catch him, sir. Five steps past the mouth of the alley, there are ten different directions he could go.”
Pimm looked the whistle-blower over thoughtfully. “Ben, would you mind checking our friend, to make sure he’s… quite well?”
“I get you,” Ben said. “All right, Solly, turn out your pockets, there’s a good lad.” The big man’s tone was entirely affable, and Solly frowned, but did as requested. He had nothing on him but a few coins, a bit of string, and a little pen-knife, which Ben passed to Pi
mm. The detective removed a small alchemical device from his coat pocket, shaped like a pocketwatch, and opened the metal cover. A bright, intense light shone forth from the device, focused through a lens of clear glass. It was impossible to touch the device without thinking of Ben’s (alleged) cousin, burned to death by acid in the creation of this little wonder, or one like it. Pimm shone the light on the knife and carefully examined the blade and clasp. Not a spot of blood on the metal or in the crevices, and when Pimm touched the blade with the ball of his thumb, it was nearly dull as a spoon—a thing carried more from habit than utility.
“He has no other weapons?”
Ben shook his head. “I wouldn’t even call that a weapon, m’lord, but no.”
“It’s unlikely he cut himself to lead us astray, then.” Pimm folded the knife and passed it to Ben.
The outraged man opened his mouth to protest, but Ben just patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t take offense, Solly. He’s just doing what Mr. Value asked, suspecting everybody and everything.” Ben began grilling the man about the appearance of the killer, while Pimm knelt to examine the body. He turned her over. Pretty girl, surely no more than seventeen, Irish coloration, eyes staring wide. Pimm leaned almost close enough to kiss her, then turned his face away. The smell of ether still clung to her face. He put his head to her chest, and felt for a pulse in her wrist, but there was no heartbeat.
“I didn’t think nothing of it,” the man was saying. “He walked up to her like anybody, and they chatted real pleasant, almost like old friends, but Margaret there was a friendly soul. I suppose they made an arrangement, and they headed into the alley. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but…” He trailed off.
“You crept up to the alley to have a look,” Ben said. He turned to Pimm. “Solly here’s a peeper, sir, everyone knows it.”
“Just doing my duty.” Solly looked down. “Keeping watch. I saw him pressing her up against the wall, and that looked all right, but he was holding something to her face, and she was going all limp, so I shouted, and ran in. He stepped right up to me, slashing out with this big old knife like, and I got cut. Thought he was going to cut my head off, but he sort of wavered, then turned and ran off. I whistled as hard as I could.”
“The ether killed her, I think,” Pimm said, putting his hand against the girl’s cheek. It was still warm. “It seems likely some of the other women died the same way.”
“Think he’ll try again tonight?” Ben said.
“It’s possible, but I suspect he’ll be more cautious than that.”
“What happens next?” Ben said.
Pimm sighed. “We’d better get her body to Mr. Adams. And quickly. Within the hour is best.”
Ben and Jim exchanged a glance. Ben shrugged. “As you like. We can manage that if we hurry.”
“Sometimes I think science has replaced necromancy as the darkest art,” Pimm said, looking down at the dead woman, wondering if Adams could possibly accomplish what he’d promised. Wondering if he should be allowed even to try.
“I disagree, sir,” Ben said. “Why, the city’s never been brighter. You can see everything so much more clearly now, and that’s all thanks to science.”
“I threw out the alchemical light my missus brought home,” Solly said. “I’d never had any idea my house was so filthy until she brought that light in there. I could scarcely bring myself to sit in my own chair, t’was so disgusting.” This from a man so dirty crops could grow in the creases around his nose.
“No one ever said progress was pretty,” Pimm said, and helped them carry the poor woman away.
An Eyewitness, Sans Eyes
Adam looked up when someone began banging on the door to one of the tunnels. The block beneath the warehouses where he lived and worked were riddled with passageways, some natural, most built by men long ago for purposes forgotten, and a few breaking into even older burial chambers where there were artifacts that did not seem wrought by human hands. Adam had, in his many years here, expanded a number of those tunnels, or caused them to be expanded. Most of the passages were known only to Adam himself, but the steel door currently ringing with knocks was at the end of the tunnel Abel Value’s men used to deliver dead women to him.
After slipping his white mask on, Adam pulled on a rope, perfectly balancing counterweights swaying to pull the door open. There were two men beyond the door, in the dark space that had once been a coal cellar of a neighboring house: the one called Big Ben, and the detective who’d visited the day before. They carried a dead woman between them, one of her arms slung over each of their shoulders, her small feet dragging the ground.
“Why, Lord Pembroke,” Adam said. “You bring such interesting gifts.”
“She’s been dead forty minutes, more or less.” Halliday was red-faced, and out of breath, but had a look of determination that Adam had seen in the mirror once or twice, before he’d had the good sense to get rid of all the mirrors in his living space. “Died from inhaling too much ether. Can you do what you promised?”
“It is possible, in theory.” He paused. “I have only actually accomplished it with dogs, and it’s hard to tell how much reason a dog retains after death, as they have precious little to start with. But I am eager to try with a human subject. Even a failure could be instructive. Bring her, and place her on my table.” He led the men down the brick-lined corridor to his laboratory, and they wrestled the woman’s lifeless body onto the same table where her sister of the streets had been so recently. Adam considered his tools. The bone saw, of course, but it might be better to prepare the nutrient bath first—
“If that’s all, gents, I’d best go report to Mr. Value,” Big Ben said. “Though I’m not sure what I’m reporting.”
“Tell him the killer got away, and that Mr. Adams is examining her body for evidence that might reveal the miscreant’s identity.”
“That is a tale that has the advantage of truth.” Adam pulled a leather apron on over his head. “You might wish to step away, gentlemen. Time is of the essence, so I must value haste over neatness.”
“I’m on my way then.” Big Ben gave Halliday a nod, cast a worried look at Adam, and hurried back down the tunnel. Adam didn’t bother to watch him go. Ben had sense enough to make sure the door—disguised as just another filthy bit of wall on the other side—was firmly closed. He’d been here before, carrying other victims, and not just those who’d fallen victim to this new murderer. Adam had been about his researches for a long time, and there were always dead young girls to be found in London.
Halliday stepped back, but didn’t turn away, watching with an interest that Adam perceived as more than morbid curiosity. Halliday was a man who sought to understand the world. He was a fool, of course, and ignorant, as all normal men with their pitifully short lives were when compared to Adam or his patron. (How hilarious it was that Halliday thought Value was Adam’s patron, when in truth Adam and Value both served the same, far greater master.) Still, Adam’s reflexive contempt was softened a bit by Halliday’s clear-eyed willingness to watch this procedure.
“You seem rather more sober today than you did yesterday, Lord Pembroke.” Adam busied himself preparing the nutrient bath, filling his largest glass vessel with the component fluids.
“I do enjoy a tipple from time to time, Mr. Adams, but when pursuing a murderer, it is best to keep one’s mind clear.”
“I did not say you seemed entirely sober, sir. The alcohol on your breath is merely fainter today.” The smell of the brandy appeared, to Adam, the color of pale green grass.
“A drink can give one the courage to pursue a murderer, too.” Halliday spoke without apparent shame. “You have a good sense of smell.”
“All my senses are highly developed. I was endowed by my creator with marvelous gifts.”
“Such modesty.”
“It is modesty, in fact. My gifts were given to me—I am due no credit for them.”
“I see. All glory to God, indeed. But surely you were the one who de
veloped those… gifts. With hard work, and study? One does not attain all this”—to his credit, Halliday’s voice betrayed not a hint of sarcasm as he gestured at the dank subterranean laboratory—“without sustained and serious effort.”
“We are all just machines, Lord Pembroke. Created, presented with a certain set of initial conditions and constraints, and set on our courses, which we follow unerringly.”
“Surely you don’t believe we have no choice—”
“The brain is a machine, too,” Adam murmured, raising his bone saw. “I will have to remove her head now. Do not be alarmed.” He cut through her throat and spinal column with his bone saw, careful to decapitate her well below the brain stem. The blood flowed, but didn’t spurt, as her heart was no longer pumping. Once the cut was complete, he arranged the straps and clamps on the table to hold the severed head in place for the more delicate work.
“Now I must scalp her. Normally, I would shave the head first. But time is limited. We may already be too late.”
“You said an hour. It’s only been forty-five minutes now.”
Adam began to scalp the woman, much as the savages in the New World were said to do to their enemies, only in reverse, starting in the back of the head and peeling upward. “Yes. That was merely an estimate, however. I did not expect you to actually bring me a fresh victim, Lord Pembroke. I assumed our conversation was theoretical. But you will note I am proceeding with all due haste, despite my surprise, and I have some hopes for a positive outcome.” He peeled the flesh and her lovely red hair away, letting it fall across her face, the scalp attached by a flap of skin at the base of her nose, revealing the bare skull beneath.
Halliday still did not turn away, though Adam sensed a certain level of agitation. Adam took his bone saw and began to cut around the circumference of the dead girl’s skull, just above the eyes. “The key now is to cut open the skull without damaging the brain. With a dog or cat, you can cut through the skull with shears, but the human skull is a mighty helm of bone, and requires a strong hand and a sharper blade.” Adam did not add that his strength was equal to the task, as that would be readily apparent. His movements were smooth and meticulous. The slip of a fraction of an inch would destroy portions of her brain, and this procedure had only a marginal chance of success under ideal circumstances, which did not include inadvertently sawing through her gray matter. “Tell, me, Lord Pembroke. Do you believe in love?”