The Queen's Accomplice

by Susan Elia MacNeal

  May opened the door to the room Brynn had stayed in, then handed Maggie the key. “Here you go. Is there anything else you need?”

  “No, thank you, though.”

  “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

  Inside her cramped room, Maggie tossed her handbag on the dresser and slipped off her coat. She sat down on the bed.

  And waited.

  The chamber was furnished and comfortable enough. Its windows were blocked by blackout curtains, and the only sounds she heard were the low rumble of traffic and a faint wailing siren. Maggie stared up at the ceiling, heart beating, doing breathing exercises.

  Then she heard a scratching at the door.

  She froze, her heart pounding.

  As the door opened, she called, “Yes?”

  But no one was there. Must have been the wind.

  —

  Hours later, well after midnight, Maggie knew it was time to go. The Blackout Beast—if he was even there—wasn’t making his move in the hotel, at least that night.

  Feeling equally disappointed and relieved, Maggie took the aging elevator down to the ground floor and nodded to the officer working the lobby. She exited and walked through the moonlight in the biting cold wind to the unmarked van where she knew Durgin and his officers were waiting, along with May.

  “He’s not going to show,” Maggie told Durgin. “I want to leave.”

  Durgin gave an explosive exhale. “Well, we gave it a shot,” he said. “I can’t say I’m sorry this has all come to naught. Let’s get you home. Do you want a lift back to your house?”

  Maggie nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

  “You’ll be safe there. I’ll have my men in place by the time you arrive. There will be one inside the house to greet you—George Staunton, you’ve met him at the Yard—and then leave. And then the rest in the shrubbery, waiting.” Durgin turned to May. “And you, you’ll be all right?”

  “I’ll be fine,” she assured him, pulling her coat around her. “I’ll make sure everything’s in order and then lock up.”

  As Maggie and Durgin drove off, May walked into the hotel and went directly to the front desk, picking up the telephone receiver. She dialed the numbers of the public call box and waited until the connection was established, looking around to make sure none of the officers were still there.

  “Yes, she just left for her house,” May whispered to the person on the other end of the line.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Locking her front door behind her, Maggie flipped on the lights and shrugged off her coat as she walked toward the closet, looking for Detective George Staunton. Well, at least I’m not blindfolded this time, she thought grimly, ignoring the tension in her neck and jaw. And at least Chuck and Griffin are safe. Chuck and her baby had been evacuated, and were spending the night at the Savoy Hotel, with Scotland Yard guards right outside their door. Even K had been evacuated. The thought of her cat enjoying the Savoy almost—almost—made Maggie smile. She glanced around the shadowy foyer, expecting to see Staunton.

  But instead, Mark stepped out of the shadows. Mark? He’s not part of the plan. Maggie hadn’t even seen him since he’d gotten drunk and, well—

  “You?” Maggie managed, her voice sounding overly loud in the eerie quiet of the deserted house. “Where’s Staunton?”

  “Plans change.” Mark’s breath was hot and reeked of alcohol. Has he been drinking again? Maggie took a step back. “And he’s only a Met officer. I’m MI-Five.” Mark reached behind him to pull out a gun from the waist of his trousers. “You’re better off with me.”

  Then, “This is some place you have. It’s all yours?”

  “Yes,” Maggie said, in no mood for conversation. “Inheritance. Long story.”

  “Still, it’s awfully big for an unmarried woman, alone.”

  “I have flatmates.”

  He saw how her eyes darted up the stairs and into the shadows. “I’ve already checked it out, cellar to attic. There’s no one here. And the Beast won’t get past the officers stationed outside—we’ll get him before he gets you.”

  Maggie drew in a trembling breath. At the front door, Mark turned back at the last second, as if he were going to say something. Instead, he shook his head and opened the door, letting the light shine out, letting his voice carry, and making a big show of leaving.

  Using her as bait in her own house was their backup plan if the Beast didn’t come to the hotel. If he followed her, which is what they all hoped, the Met police would get him before he even set foot inside.

  And so, with any luck—if that was the word—the killer was watching Mark leave, too.

  When he was gone, Maggie fumbled with the locks, which slid into place with loud, echoing clicks. She hooked the chain on the door. Now there was nothing to do but wait.

  She wandered the rooms, flipping on lights, looking in closets and behind furniture. Why wasn’t the telephone ringing? Why wasn’t Durgin calling to tell her they’d arrested him, that she was safe now? She sat down on a wing chair in the library, waiting, tensed, listening to every creak and scrape the old house made, sounds like trolls under a bridge.

  She decided to go upstairs, to her bedroom—she’d lock the door and feel safe there. With one last look around her empty library, she stood. She checked the lock on the back door and rechecked the front. Then she maneuvered up the steep steps in the darkness.

  In her bedroom, Maggie pulled open the blackout curtains, and looked out into the night. The moon was glorious—full, bright, and almost blue against the night sky. Where were the surveillance officers? She knew they were probably hiding in the shrubbery, maybe even in one of the tall trees, but still. She couldn’t see them.

  What if the Blackout Beast had killed them?

  No, of course not. She shut the drapes. But even with the blackout curtains in place, the moon was dazzling enough to sneak slivers of light into the room through the cracks.

  She sat on the bed and leaned back against the headboard, knowing it could be a long wait.

  The officers were out there, circled around the house. The Beast couldn’t get past them. But in her heart of hearts, doubts lingered. After all, she’d publicly mocked him. A tremor shot through her body. Ring me, Maggie willed Durgin. Tell me you caught him. But the telephone remained silent.

  Then the back of her neck prickled. A gloved hand clamped implacably over her mouth, holding a handkerchief doused with something strong and foul.

  As Maggie struggled to turn to face her attacker, he climbed on top of her, hand with the cloth pressed against her mouth and nose. She knew he wanted to kill her, but first, she also knew, he would rape, torture, and mutilate her. Like Mary Jane Kelly, Jack the Ripper’s final victim, the one with the red hair. He would be satisfied with nothing less.

  As she struggled under the cloth, unable to see, he spoke, his voice warm and resonant. “In case you’re wondering where your team is, they’re all dead.”

  Oh, God. The men were dead. George Staunton was dead. Mark was dead. And back at Scotland Yard, Durgin didn’t even know. She was alone.

  Her vision blurred as she slid off the bed, hitting her head on the parquet floor. The breath went out of her lungs with a gasp.

  A jumble of pictures spun in her brain, stories girls had whispered—of attacks on unprotected women, throat cuttings, rapes, molestation. Her first terrified impulse was to hide in the closet, crawl under the bed, fly down the back stairs and run screaming into the relative safety of the blackout—anything to escape him. But then she remembered Brynn.

  I’m still alive, she thought through the haze of drugs. I still have a chance to get him. For Brynn. For all of us.

  Maggie’s breath came back to her, suddenly and painfully. I’m in the labyrinth, she realized. She forced her eyes open, then struggled to her feet, stumbling and staggering, her drugged mind playing tricks on her. Confusing images came and went—the man of crawling flies, the devils of Doré’s etchings, Brynn’s white face, her vacant eye
s staring heavenward.

  Maggie forced herself to climb down the wooden stairway. She had a sudden memory of the men at the swimming pond who’d shouted obscenities at her. What if they, too, were waiting for her? As she fought waves of dizziness and nausea, the stairs seemed to twist and turn. Were they moving? Like snakes and ladders? Who was there? Mark, mocking her, telling her to spread her legs like she had for Hugh? Hadn’t she just come up these stairs? Or was she going down?

  She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember anything now. She was hopelessly bewildered, dizzy from whatever drug the Beast had given her.

  She stopped and listened, sniffing at the air like a terrified doe. She didn’t hear anything. Surely he was coming after her? Was he on the stairs behind her right now? Blood roared in her ears. She caught herself on the stair railing, and then she fell.

  At the foot of the staircase, she lay crumpled, panting harshly, pain exploding through her body. In her haze, she wasn’t sure if the monster’s claws on the hall table’s legs were real or imaginary. She crawled forward, and pulled herself up onto a chair, using every remaining scrap of strength she possessed. She heard footsteps, heavy on the stairs. She tried to stand, but couldn’t. Couldn’t move at all.

  There, looming in front of her, was Max, who turned into the red-faced puppet Punch. Then the figure was the violinist in the park, playing Symphonie fantastique, devil horns on his head. And then Mark, reeking of alcohol. And then the Blackout Beast, his blade glittering as he savaged Brynn’s body.

  “Come on!” she heard him bellow, shaking her back into consciousness. The man in the green sunglasses.

  She looked up and realized who it was—Nicholas Reitter, the architect. May’s fiancé. She blinked, realizing too late. He was also the man in the park, the man with the green sunglasses. The one who’d always been there, in the background. The one she’d never consciously registered, but must have noted, all the same.

  She could hear his breath rasping in the shadows, and then the safety on a gun being released. “Let’s have a game of Hide and Seek, shall we, Miss Hope? You’re it!”

  Maggie forced herself up. She wavered as she made her way forward, to get to the front door.

  “I’ll count down from ten and give you a head start? Ten. Nine. Eight…”

  Maggie tripped and fell again. He has a gun. Excruciating pain shot through her right ankle, but she pushed herself up again, sticky, warm rivulets of blood running down her shin. Keep going.

  Nicholas Reitter was the Blackout Beast.

  She was going to die.

  A small part of her wanted to laugh, if only because Nicholas was so short, so slender, his hair was so very mousy brown. This, this is the dread Beast? And then she did laugh, in a series of breathy exclamations, halfway between a snort and a scream.

  “Why—” She heard his resonant voice as though from far, far away. “I’ve found you!” As he grabbed at her with gloved hands, Maggie could feel his heat. He’s enjoying this, she realized, shuddering. He was feeding on her fear, her blind panic, her abject terror.

  “I’ve been watching you,” he told her as he grabbed her by the armpits. “Meddling bitch.”

  “You killed them,” Maggie said slowly. “They were going to go off to war—brave women, doing their duty—but instead, you killed them.”

  “Women,” he stated, his eyes rolling like a rearing warhorse’s, “should not be going off to war. Should not be doing a man’s job. That’s the problem. Why won’t you understand? Can’t you see what a laughingstock we Englishmen will be if anyone finds out? ‘Oh, the British men can’t do it themselves, have to get a bunch of girls to step in….’ ”

  The word laughingstock rang in Maggie’s ears. Laughingstock, she thought. You’re terrified of being a laughingstock, she realized. Not of being attacked or raped or murdered as we women are, but of being laughed at, found wanting. Terrified of being laughed at. How droll, she thought. And how drolly horrible and horribly droll. The revelation cleared her head.

  “What happened to you?” she asked, as he picked up a ball of twine for wrapping packages, then sliced it with a letter opener. “What happened when you were a little boy?”

  “Shut up,” he snarled.

  Despite the headache piercing her skull, the throbbing in her ankle, and the blood dripping down her shin, she persisted. “What you’re doing”—she shrugged—“it’s just misogyny, age-old male violence against women. There’s nothing heroic about it—it’s not some noble crusade. You’re not Jack the Ripper. Not even a Blackout Beast. You’re a terrified young man, scared of being sent off to war, with a horrible bedtime story you want to tell.”

  “Women’s place is in the home, yes. Mothers are the angels of the hearth.” His pupils were pinpoints of concentrated hatred. “For years, I’ve been treated like a mouse, not a man. Now I’m a god and you women are the animals. And I’ll slaughter you all like animals—a god exacting my retribution. For the crime of living a better life than I can have. If I can’t stop you, I’ll destroy you.”

  His voice was rising in volume, and his tongue flicked out like a snake’s. “You denied me happiness, and so now I’ll deny you life—it’s only fair. And when I’m finished, there will be mountains of skulls and rivers of blood—and rightfully so. You all deserve to be annihilated. I’ll give you whores exactly what you deserve—eradication.”

  Despite her fear, her gut was telling her things. Interesting things. “Your mother—” Maggie managed. What had Durgin said about the Blackout Beast after Doreen Leighton’s murder? Something about the murderer’s mother. Abandonment. That’s it. “Did she die? Or did she leave you?” His breath caught and she knew she was on to something. “How old were you?”

  He didn’t answer. In a flash of empathy, his childhood torment raged through her, terrifying and bitterly cold.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, as he twisted the length of twine, binding her hands together. “I’m sorry you didn’t have parents who cared for you and protected you. I’m sorry you didn’t have a mother—for whatever reason.”

  He didn’t stop.

  “It wasn’t fair for you—you were just a child,” she persisted, “and I’m so sorry. I wish things could have been different for you. Mothers are not supposed to cause pain, they’re supposed to love you and defend you. And fathers are supposed to protect you—not attack you.” The ironic parallels to the relationships in her own life weren’t lost on her.

  “But you can’t take away your pain by blaming someone else. You can’t blame this generation of women. You can’t take away the pain by hurting us. It makes you as bad and as hurtful as your own parents were.”

  Something flickered in the depths of his eyes, something nasty. “Shut. Up. You. Ungrateful. Bitch!” The blow to her face sent the room spinning.

  Maggie pulled herself together through sheer force of will. “You have a choice. You can stop this madness.”

  He slapped her across the face again. Harder this time. “Shut up!!” he roared. His eyes were red and bestial. And when he leaned into her, she used the opportunity to slam her forehead into his. As he staggered back in shock, she shook off the twine and ran.

  All she could see were sparks and shooting stars. A door. She pulled hard on the knob. It wouldn’t open.

  She was sure she could hear footsteps behind her, although she couldn’t see anything in the darkness. She twisted frantically at the doorknob, slamming her shoulder into the door. There was a ping of metal as the dead bolt snapped and fell to the floor. When the door opened, she fell into another room. Where am I? The drugs…is this how Brynn felt?

  The library. There were large plate-glass windows, all obscured by blackout curtains. On her hands and knees, she crawled to them, ripping the heavy black fabric down. Then she flipped on every switch and lit every lamp she could see, dragging them into the windows. Light, she thought. Light will save me.

  Then the world kaleidoscoped, patterns swirling. She spun and tumbled h
elplessly into the darkness. When she recovered, she saw ancient stone walls. A maze, she realized. The labyrinth.

  That’s when she heard Brynn’s voice. “I met the Beast in the labyrinth, too. I tried to get away, but he killed me.” Brynn walked to Maggie.

  “What?” Maggie couldn’t process what was happening. “Brynn?”

  “Before the first village was built on the marshes of the Thames, there was a labyrinth here. And a Beast. There’s always been a Beast here.”

  “Jack the Ripper,” Maggie murmured.

  Brynn shook her head. “Much, much older than him. Jack was only one of his more recent disguises. There have been so many others. And now he’s the Blackout Beast.”

  “I’ve dreamed of the Beast,” Maggie said. Brynn. It’s so strange to see Brynn. Does this mean I’m dying?

  She knew, with the certainty of dreams, that somewhere in the labyrinth lurked the Beast, biding its time, waiting to come for her. She could hear it as it pawed the ground, snorting.

  Then in the dream, or hallucination, or whatever it was—it charged. She couldn’t see it clearly in the dimness, couldn’t see if it was a boar, or an ox, or some kind of prehistoric mammoth. But it was gigantic, with scarlet eyes in a goat’s face, flaring nostrils, and sweating flanks. The body of a man and the legs of a bull. A Minotaur. The Beast.

  As it charged her, Maggie rolled away at the last moment. It galloped past, red eyes smoldering. Hidden once again in shadows, it threw back its head and howled.

  Maggie struggled to her feet and waited, knowing the Beast was biding its time.

  Are you the hunter or the hunted? Maggie heard Brynn call. As time expanded and contracted, Maggie felt hundreds of years come and go in a few breaths.

  In the shadows, she could hear it snorting and growling, cloven hooves pawing at the ground.

  Once again, it charged her. Maggie waited until the last possible moment, then somersaulted to one side—but not before grabbing and ripping out a knife from the Beast’s hide. It felt cold in her hand. Solid. Heavy.

  The Beast turned and bellowed, its goat eyes shining with pure hatred. Blood trickled from its side.