The Heartless City

by Andrea Berthot

  “Where are you taking her?” Milo called, his voice shrill and unsteady.

  Elliot answered without looking back. “I don’t know.”

  He didn’t. All he knew was he wanted her somewhere peaceful and quiet. With numb arms, he carried her through a side door and into a hallway. Halfway through the cramped passage, he passed a room of garden supplies, including a wicker settee with a dusty but unstained cushion. He stepped inside and gently laid her down on the settee, but when he did, the numbness dissolved and the pain behind it rushed back, breaking over his body like a wave and flooding his lungs. Tears erupted from deep in his throat, and he crumbled to his knees, curling one fist against the settee and jamming the other against his teeth so hard he tasted blood.

  “Elliot? Elliot! What in God’s name are you doing?”

  He knew it was his father’s voice, that Milo had probably gone to him the moment they got back, but he couldn’t stop sobbing or pry his knees from the freezing concrete floor.

  “Have you lost your mind?” his father cried, barreling toward him, his panic remote and inconsequential. “You brought a body here?”

  “She’s not a body!” Elliot cried again.

  His father misunderstood. He moved around him and bent over Iris, checking the pulse in her wrist and throat and pressing his ear to her chest.

  “She’s not in rigor mortis yet, but Elliot, she’s dead. What is wrong with you? Why on earth did you bring her here?”

  Elliot couldn’t raise his head. Hearing the word “dead” on his father’s lips was the final blow.

  “I’m going to get a footman to help Milo take her back to the carriage,” his father said, his voice stern, but his fear as sharp as a knife. “Pull yourself together.”

  His footsteps faded away, and Elliot sucked in a rattling breath, pressing the base of his palms against his eyes to clear the blur. Milo might have been easy to fight, but he didn’t stand a chance against his father and the footmen. He rose up onto his knees and looked down at Iris’s face, which was still smeared with dirt from the unpaved alley where Milo found her. His chest cracking, he reached out and wiped the streaks away, clenching his jaw as his fingertips brushed her soft, cloudlike skin.

  He thought of the first time they met, how the beauty of her spirit had stolen his breath before he saw her. The absence of that spirit was more than painful―it was a tragedy. There wasn’t just a gaping hole in his heart, but in the world. He lifted her hand and pressed his moistened lips against her palm, feeling so much that his excess emotion seemed to flow into her, leaving his body for one that would never feel anything again. His brain screamed for him to get up, that his father would be back soon, but he closed his eyes and gripped her hand tighter, sliding her palm to his cheek. Her smooth, pale wrist was resting just beneath his lips.

  And then, in the tomblike silence, he felt something jump beneath them.

  He opened his eyes and raised his lips with a single thought: a pulse. But that wasn’t possible; his own father had just examined and pronounced her dead. He leaned forward and stared at her face, but it looked exactly the same―until a frantic gasp tore through the air.

  And she sat up.

  Elliot scrambled backward along the floor, his heart in his throat. He’d lost his mind―his grief had caused his brain to detach from reality. She opened her mouth and another desperate inhale shattered the silence, and then her golden eyes flew open and darted about the room. Wild confusion erupted from her chest as she looked around, checking her body, her clothes, and the settee she was sitting on. She shook her head, as if to clear it, and then caught sight of Elliot, and the two of them stared at each other through the dusty beams of sunlight.

  “Elliot,” she breathed, and then she coughed, her voice rusty and raw. “What is going on? How did I get here? Where am I?”

  Elliot shook his head. “No. This isn’t real. You’re dead.”

  Her eyes widened as fear―and strangely, guilt―washed through her veins. “Oh God, you must have found me. You found me unconscious in Somers Town.”

  “No,” he cried, still shaking his head. “Not unconscious―dead.”

  “I wasn’t dead,” she insisted, raising her hands and swinging her legs to the floor. “I know I seemed that way, but I was alive, and I can explain.” She sucked in a breath and rubbed the palms of her hands against her eyes. “Oh God. I let it go too far. I went out for too long.”

  Her words didn’t make any sense, but Elliot didn’t really hear them. The only sound that existed was the beat of his own heart, which pulsed with the same two words again and again: She’s alive, she’s alive.

  She lowered her hands and exhaled. “What time is it now? Where did you bring me?”

  Alive, alive, alive, alive.

  “Elliot, where are we?”

  He blinked and swallowed, his brain on fire. “I brought you to the palace.”

  Her lips parted, and Elliot felt her lungs freeze.

  “I’m in Buckingham Palace?”

  “Yes,” he said, chilled by her sudden fear. “Iris, what’s wrong?”

  “I―I can’t be here. I thought―before, I used to want―but now―” She clutched her skirt, her chest filling with panic. “What if she’s right?”

  “What do you mean? What if who’s right?”

  “I have to go. It might not be safe―”

  “Holy mother of God.”

  Iris raised her head, the whites of her eyes expanding with terror, and Elliot leapt to his feet and turned around to see his father. He was standing in the doorway with a footman just behind him, his eyes wide, and his face as pale as a corpse.

  “It’s not possible.”

  Elliot opened his mouth and tried to think of what to say, but before he had the chance, Iris bolted from the settee. She flew past him and charged through the doorway, nearly knocking his father and the footman off their feet. Once she was gone, what was left of Elliot’s reason dissolved, and he dashed through the doorway as well and tore after her down the hall.

  “Iris, wait. You don’t know where you’re going!” he called.

  But she didn’t stop. She turned and ran down the corridor that would have led to the garden, but instead of turning left she turned right and into the palace proper. Elliot scrambled after her and into the Marble Hall, which was not only filled with priceless statues and art but busy servants. They stumbled against the walls and screamed in fright as Iris shot past them, but no amount of shouting or barriers could slow her down. Not until she reached the archway that led to the Grand Hall, where a sleepy, oblivious Cam strolled out and walked into her path.

  The collision knocked them both off their feet and onto the marble floor, creating a thunderous crash that nearly stopped Elliot in his tracks. Cam sat up and gripped his head, releasing a string of expletives, but the words died in his throat when he saw Iris sprawled before him.

  “Iris! Are you hurt? What are you doing―” he began, but she crawled back onto her feet and darted past him without a word.

  “Cam!” Elliot yelled as he neared him. “She’s trying to get out! But she’s going the wrong way! We have to help her―”

  “Stop that girl!”

  Elliot turned around to see his father and the footman running through the Marble Hall. He and Cam looked at each other, and then the two of them dashed after Iris beneath the Grand Hall archway, screaming for her to stop and turn down a different corridor. But she didn’t listen and didn’t stop, and soon she was headed straight toward the palace’s Grand Staircase, which led to the second floor and even fewer places to flee. Elliot’s father was only a few steps behind him. In desperation, he shouted over his shoulder, “Let her go! She means no harm!”

  “Elliot, that girl just rose from the dead!” his father cried.

  Then everything stopped, because Iris collided with someone at the foot of the stairs. She stumbled backward and fell to the ground, just as she had with Cam, but this time, when she looked up, she remained froze
n where she sat. Standing above her was Andrew and, beside him, the Lord Mayor, whose burning gaze roamed over her as if she were made of gold.

  “What is this I hear about a girl who can rise from the dead?”

  he private space closest to the Grand Staircase was the Green Drawing Room. It was as much gold as it was green, with gilt mirrors and picture frames and buttery yellow fringe lining the silken emerald curtains. The furniture was also green with delicate gold accents, and Iris was curled in one of the chairs against the southern wall. The Lord Mayor had ordered a maid to fetch her a warm blanket. She didn’t look cold, as usual, but it seemed the proper thing to do for a girl in a dirt-stained dress, and the thick, blue flannel was currently wrapped around her shoulders. The blanket made her look like a weary guest being comforted, but everything else about the scene made her seem more like a criminal being watched and interrogated.

  She was the only person sitting. Elliot’s father and the Lord Mayor were standing a few feet in front of her, the Lord Mayor leaning back against the fireplace mantle. Cam and Andrew were standing beside a desk to the Lord Mayor’s left, Andrew with his secretarial quill and notebook ready. Elliot hung back away from everyone, near the room’s closed door, watching Iris and trying to slow the breathing her fear had quickened.

  “Now,” the Lord Mayor said, straightening up from his place at the mantel, concealing his excitement with a cool and even tone. “Who would like to begin? How did this girl come to be here today?”

  Elliot swallowed and looked at his father, who glanced at the Lord Mayor.

  “Elliot was helping me with a job for the hospital,” he said. “He and Milo went out this morning to look for potential cadavers.”

  Cam and Andrew raised their heads and stared at Elliot, and even Iris’s frightened gaze flitted in his direction.

  “You were out… looking for bodies?” Cam asked, not bothering to mask his horror.

  Elliot’s throat grew dry as he searched for what to say.

  “Yes,” his father said calmly. “Just for today. As a favor to me.”

  Elliot looked at his father, gratitude swelling inside his chest, but then he remembered the reason he was lying for him now. He didn’t want the Lord Mayor to know the mistake his son had made, what a weak, repulsive creature he’d become as a result.

  “He and Milo found this girl,” he continued to the Lord Mayor. “But instead of taking her to St. Thomas’s, they brought her here. Because…”

  He glanced over at Elliot and then quickly looked away. Back in the garden supply room, Elliot had been too distraught to wonder what his father thought of his actions and his tears. Now, however, he felt the knife twisting inside his heart. He didn’t know Iris, but he knew she meant something to Elliot―that he’d brought her there in the madness of grief he understood himself. Grief he’d been trying to hide, deny, and forget for the last five years.

  “I suppose he wasn’t certain she was dead,” he quickly recovered. “So he brought her here to me, and I examined her myself.” He turned back to Iris, a resurgence of disbelief transcending his pain. “She had no breath and no pulse, Harlan. I swear on my life she was dead.”

  “I wasn’t dead.”

  Iris’s voice rang out like a bell, and everyone turned to her. Her fear was giving way to the rage she’d felt in the music hall, and just as she had then, she masked the feeling with sheer perfection, glancing down and murmuring, “If you would pardon me, sir.”

  “My dear,” the Lord Mayor said. “It is you who must pardon us.” He stepped toward her, his fierce delight and fascination swelling. “We’ve been terribly rude, I fear. Won’t you please tell us your name?”

  “My name is Iris Faye.”

  “And you’re an American it seems.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She went on to tell him the same story she’d told Cam and Elliot, how her late mother had come to London to work with English suffragettes, though this time she left out the crack about absolute monarchies. The Lord Mayor listened with interest, but Elliot’s father seemed not to hear her. Instead, he stared at her face with a heavily furrowed brow, feeling a peculiar blend of confusion and recognition.

  “Your eyes,” the Lord Mayor said when she finished. “They’re quite remarkable. And I think I’ve seen those dresses on the girls at La Maison Des Fleurs.” He turned to Cam with an eyebrow raised. “Is this the waitress I heard you and Charlie Hands discussing the other night?”

  Elliot’s blood burned as he remembered Charlie’s words, but Cam’s ran cold with fear, which he hid with a crooked smile. “Yes. She waited on us when we were there a few nights ago.”

  “What a coincidence,” the Lord Mayor replied, turning back to Iris, whose rage had only increased at the mention of Charlie’s name. “So you say you weren’t dead, my dear,” he began, looking her over again, and Elliot sank his fingernails into his palms inside his pockets. The Lord Mayor’s sense of power had inflated with the news that she was the “chit” Charlie wanted to “take down a peg,” and now he was intrigued by more than her possible resurrection.

  “My friend, Dr. Morrissey, is the most renowned and accomplished physician in London,” the Lord Mayor continued. “And he swears on his life that you were dead when he saw you this morning. And yet, here you sit―alive and claiming you always have been. So, if you please, explain to me why Dr. Morrissey’s wrong.”

  Iris looked into his eyes, her demeanor smooth and cool, but Elliot felt the storm of emotion building beneath her skin. It was not only made up of rage and terror, but also exhilaration, as if she’d been handed a gift she both dreaded and desired. After a long pause, something locked into place inside her, and although the fear remained, a quiet confidence took over. She straightened her shoulders and let out a breath.

  “Dr. Morrissey believed I was dead because I had almost no pulse. I’d slowed my heart and breathing as far as I could without actually dying. My heart was still beating, just too slowly for anyone to detect.”

  The Lord Mayor’s mirth dissolved. “What do you mean you slowed your heart?” he asked, stepping toward her.

  “Exactly what I said. I slowed it the way other people close their fists or open their hands. It’s something I’ve been able to do ever since I can remember. If I tell my body to do something, it does it. I have complete control.”

  Silence swelled in the room, and Elliot’s father shook his head. “I don’t understand. Your body does whatever you tell it to do?”

  “Yes. Well, anything the body is capable of. I couldn’t tell it to fly, for instance. The body doesn’t do that. But hearts speed up and slow down, flesh heals, temperatures rise and fall, so I can make my body do all those things, and do them faster.”

  “You’re saying you can change your heart rate and temperature at will?”

  “More than that. I can give myself bursts of adrenalin to make myself faster or stronger. I can hold my breath under water longer than most people if I have to. I can stop myself from feeling pain by deadening my nerves, and even though I still need to eat, drink, and sleep to stay alive, I don’t have to feel hungry, thirsty, or tired if I don’t want to. I can make my body fight infection before a virus takes hold, and I can heal a flesh wound within a matter of seconds.”

  For a moment, the Lord Mayor simply stared at her, his eyes on fire. Then, abruptly, he turned around and charged toward the desk, leaving Cam and Andrew just enough time to leap out of the way. He rifled through a drawer, closed it, and then returned to Iris, holding out a silver letter opener. “Show me.”

  Iris stood, removed the blanket, and took the opener from him. Then, without hesitation, she dragged the blade across her palm, not even flinching as blood erupted along her smooth, white skin. Once she was done, she dropped the hand with the blade and held out the other, and Elliot’s mouth grew dry as he watched the wound instantly close, leaving her palm a little bloodstained but whole and good as new.

  He thought of the night in the aviary, how he�
�d seen a streak of blood on her hand but no injury beneath it. That night she’d also claimed adrenalin helped her to lift the marble wing, and when he’d mentioned how cold it was, she’d shivered as if on cue. Now he understood how she could feel shame without sweating or blushing, how rage could roar inside her while her pulse stayed slow and even. He shook his head, and in spite of the frightful and dire situation, an astonished smile crept across his face.

  She was like a fée.

  The room was silent, except for a murmured “Jesus Christ” from Cam, but then Andrew―who never spoke out of turn―said, “It’s like she’s a Hyde.”

  Perhaps they’d all been thinking it―even Elliot, in the back of his mind―but his father soon reminded them of why that couldn’t be.

  “Hydes only heal in their monstrous state, not in their human form,” he said. “Besides, the drug is fatal to women. She couldn’t be a Hyde.”

  “You’re right; I’m not,” Iris said, sitting back down and setting the blade on a stand beside her chair. “I’ve been able to do this my whole life, even back in Kansas.”

  The Lord Mayor inclined his head and stared down into her face, no longer bothering to hide his fascination. “What of the rest of your family? Could they do these things as well?”

  “No. My mother and my grandparents were perfectly ordinary.”

  “What of your father?”

  “I don’t know. I never knew who he was.”

  She said the words without shame, just as she had at the music hall, which seemed to shock the Lord Mayor as much as anything else.

  “You say you slowed your heart rate and breathing on purpose the other night,” Elliot’s father said. “Why would you do such a thing?”

  Iris let out a breath and tucked a curl behind her ear. “Adrenalin can make me fast and strong enough to outrun or fight off the average man, but without a gun, I don’t stand a chance against a Hyde. I may be able to heal, but I can’t regrow a heart, so the only way to protect myself from them is to play dead. They hunt by sensing heartbeats―that’s why they don’t attack the dead―so if I slow mine down enough, they miss it and pass me by. Last night, however, I must have gone too far and lost consciousness.”