The Dickens Mirror

by Ilsa J. Bick

  There is a short silence, one that even the splish-splish of his father’s blood does not break. That pump’s run dry. Mouth open in an airless gawp, his father’s face is gray, his eyes already glazing. The edges of that bloody slick are growing turgid as grape jam.

  “But …” His mother’s voice is meek now, and this pleases him, too. “But Artie, you didn’t hit him with a skillet.”

  At that, he grins, and from her reaction, he wishes he could see his dial for himself: orange teeth, ruby lips, bruised face. He must look a positive horror.

  “Well.” Striding to the hob, he fetches up the skillet. There are still curls of oily leeks and crusted onions stuck to the blackened cast iron. They’ll make a mess, but all that’s to the better. It lends that little bit of credence: He came at me. I was scared, and the skillet was right there on the hob. Gripping the heavy pan in both hands, he cocks his elbows and sets his feet. “Not yet I haven’t,” he says to his mother.

  And then he brings the skillet down with all his …

  2

  “DOYLE?”

  “What?” He blinked back to find the hag, with only half a skull and one good hand, still on his right arm. Doyle cleared the rust from his throat. “Yes?”

  “I asked if you were all right.” Battle cocked his head like a spaniel. “Your skin’s flushed, and you’re sweating again. Are you ill?”

  Round and round and round … “Me? Ill?” He shook the cobwebs from his mind, and the hag’s hand from his arm.

  “A touch green, you ask me.” The hag tipped Battle a knowing wink. “Bit of the old puffer’d set him to rights, you don’t mind my saying.”

  “Thank you,” Battle said, icily, “but I do mind.”

  Oh, speak for yourself. The image of his moaning father was a red cinder between his eyes. Look away, look away, Doyle, before you go blind. This is one god you dare not gaze upon for long. But he couldn’t. It was as if this memory was the only star in all his black sky.

  “Fill your bellies then,” the hag persisted, latching onto Battle. “Got me good leather. Cost ya just a fadge. For you gentlemen, I’ll part with double. Five pieces if you’ve an appetite.”

  “No, thank you,” Battle said.

  “Hate then,” and it took Doyle a second to realize that she was upping the number by three. “Can’t spare no more.”

  “Didn’t you hear?” Angry and more than a little frightened now, he wedged the knob of his billy in the hag’s chest. “Aren’t you listening? The inspector told you …”

  No. He took back his billy. No, don’t start this again. Walk away, Doyle, walk …

  Yes. Well said, poppet. From the corner of his left eye, something smoked so closely Doyle felt the whicker of its passage. Let us walk this shadowy valley together.

  What? Heart flipping, he jerked round, billy raised to strike. Nothing. Where are you? What ya playing at?

  Playing? A shadow steamed to his right. Darling, the time for games is past.

  “Oh, really?” With a wild yelp, he whirled, eyes wide, muscles quivering … but there was still nothing. “Then stop playing them!”

  “Doyle?” Battle said.

  He paid no mind. Another glimmer unfurled, right to left. This time, he spun so fast, his feet tangled on icy cobbles and he nearly fell. “Show yourself, ya Devil!”

  “Doyle, for God’s sake, man.” Battle turned a look right and left. “What is it?”

  “Jimjams,” the hag opined.

  Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Whisking to his side, Black Dog drew its long, moist tongue over his left ear. All you must needs do is open the door, poppet.

  “God!” He was so startled he actually bit his tongue. “Christ!”

  No, dear. Black Dog chuffed its dog’s laugh. Hardly.

  Good Lord, first the hallucinations, the memory, and now this! It’s never touched me, not like this! His ear tingled. Black Dog’s hot, sulfurous breath steamed into his nostrils. I’ve never smelled it or almost caught a glimpse. What did that mean?

  Mean? Black Dog chuckled. Didn’t you just ask me to show myself? Haven’t you conjured the very god you seek? What is that memory of your dear pap but the monster burning bright in your soul?

  “Doyle?” Battle, curse him. “Constable, what in God’s name …”

  “Tole ya.” The hag sounded smug. “That one’s in need of a good pipe; touch of the old smoke set him to rights. Maybe even a needle.”

  Christ, no, no more needles! He had to hang on. God, this was the drug, had to be. But what was Kramer’s game? His mouth filled with liquid, and he spat—and that was when he realized: his blood had no taste. None at all. What, what? He knew his tongue bled; he felt the ooze down his throat. But the taste was less than water. This isn’t right; it can’t be … He suddenly bit the tender flesh of his lower lip as hard as he could, wincing as his teeth gouged soft skin. All right, good; I felt that. He thought Battle said something—he caught the burr of the man’s voice—but it was Black Dog he heard most clearly: Poppet? What are you doing?

  Testing something. Eyes closed, he sucked at this fresh cut, rolling moisture on his tongue. Nothing—and that wasn’t right. Blood had a texture and taste, and it was … Salt. Salt and … rust. But there was nothing.

  What’s that prove? Black Dog was positively clinical. What’s your hypothesis?

  He didn’t know, but he felt naked, shucked. He thought that this might be what it was like for Saul, blinded by God and struck down from his mule, once the veil was lifted and the scales began to flake from his eyes, and the old world, all Saul had known, fell away. Except I’m dogged by the Devil, and there is no light, no god.

  “Doyle.” Lantern held aloft, Battle stepped into his line of sight, ducking his head down to grab Doyle’s eyes. “You’re bleeding. Bit yourself when you slipped?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, simply, wincing a bit at the stab of light from Battle’s bull’s-eye. What else could he say? I’m dissolving; I’m unraveling, a layer at a time? “Lost my footing there a second, sir, is all.”

  How metaphorical, dear.

  “I can fix ’im,” the hag said to Battle.

  “No,” he said, before Battle could respond. Pulling himself straighter, he smeared blood—not even sticky—then stared at his palm, dark with strange ink. His life line was as short and broken as before. The earth is utterly broken; the earth is split apart. He wanted to weep and laugh at the same time; here, his mother always wanted what the Jesuits stuffed in his brain to be put to good use. “I’m all right, sir. Just a …” He let that die. “Shall we?”

  “Indeed.” Turning, Battle held his lantern aloft and strode into the faceless, madding crowd. “Follow me, Constable.”

  Yes, follow Battle, darling. Black Dog whisked like smoke around his legs. Follow that light, for as long as you can.

  “Yes, sir,” he said, wiping his not-blood on his uniform coat. “Right behind you.”

  DOYLE

  Window Dressing

  1

  WHAT FELT LIKE hours later, Doyle finally spied a bright gray blur above a doorway that resolved into the blue lantern marking Lambeth Station. He followed the inspector into the station and then across the short entryway to the front desk as Black Dog slithered behind.

  To Doyle’s right, a clutch of constables chatted and held their cold-roughened hands over a low brazier mounded with orange coals. As he passed, the faint scorch of hot iron drifted past his nose, and he felt a cushion of warmer air.

  I felt that. Relief made his knees weak. I’m back. It was just the drug, that’s all. If he bit himself again, would he taste his blood this time?

  At the desk sergeant’s counter, he waited, trying not to fidget, while Battle leafed through a bedraggled day ledger. To his left, just out of sight, he felt Black Dog settle onto its haunches. Doyle listened with only half an ear as the desk sergeant reeled off the day’s happenings.

  All right. Doyle thought back to the faceless crowd. An aberration, that. T
his sergeant, for example … he might be a real man. Glancing askance, he registered an impression of eyes behind spectacles and a grizzled tangle of ginger beard, the faint gleaming crescent that extended a hair beyond the collar of his uniform shirt because the man had a tin chest, belly to just below the Adam’s apple. So far, so good. But is that because I’m filling it all in, or because the desk sergeant really sports a beard?

  Excellent question, poppet. A massive paw dropped to his left shoulder. Your capacity for observation has grown more acute.

  STOP that. He gulped back a shout. It was one thing for Black Dog to nip and lick and speak, but another entirely to actually clap him on the shoulder and—my God, was that hound larger? Had to be near man-sized. From the corner of his mouth, he said, “Take your bloody paw off my shoulder this instant.”

  Or what? Black Dog laughed its silent dog’s laugh. Make me.

  “Keep your voice down.” His eyes slid round in furtive little darts. From around the station came the clap of boots and the buzz of desultory, unintelligible conversation. It never had bothered Doyle before, all that background noise. Really quite soothing, like the flow of a river or wind through leaves. (Wait, did he actually know either? Where had he last heard a breeze through trees? Or flowing water that didn’t come from a bucket of melt?) Now, though, he felt the noise as an annoying drag of a claw along his spine. And shouldn’t he get snippets, whole sentences? Had he ever called out to any of these men by name? Had a conversation, gone for a pint, had a smoke, warmed his hands over those coals? And would they give off heat?

  Stop it. Of course, those coals were hot; he’d felt the temperature change himself. His constable’s coat sparkled with fresh snowmelt. Smash his fist into stone, he’d break a knuckle. There’d be blood.

  Ah, yes, poppet, but would it have taste and texture?

  Shut it, ya mongrel. Those men clustered over that brazier were no illusion; they had mouths set in actual faces. (But still … so faint, every visage a smear.) He spied one with a tin hand, another with a limp that suggested his wood leg needed adjusting. As Battle and the sergeant talked, he heard a door creak, felt a balloon of colder air expand against his back (and see, see, it’s snowing, freezing outside), and stole a glance. At the bottom of the steps, two constables were shaking snow from their shoulders and stamping slush from their boots. He recognized the uniforms and the brass buttons; the numbers—pinned to high collars—were right. But as the men climbed the second, shorter flight of steps, Doyle realized that the numbers were only brassy blurs and a jumbled impression of symbols set right in the spot where you’d expect to find them.

  Well, Black Dog said, positively chummy, are you sure this isn’t so much window dressing?

  No, he wasn’t. The two constables were chatting each other up and laughing; one slapped the other on the shoulder. He got the basso timbre of their notes but none of the substance. They might as well have been uncredited actors on a stage, standing well back and muttering nonsense: Peas and carrots, peas and carrots, she’s a tart, she’s a tart.

  He had to hold on. He pointedly transferred his gaze to his bunched knuckles, white and tented with tension. Get Battle to tell you what you need to know, and then finish this with Kramer. Slice the doctor’s throat from ear to ear with his sgian-dubh considering how Kramer admired it so.

  Yes. Black Dog chucked him on the arm. That’ll be a sight now, won’t it? Looking forward to it, are you, dear?

  Yes. His lips stretched in a maniac grin. Yes, he really was.

  “Something amusing, Doyle? Why, you look more up to dick there, almost jolly.” Before he could reply, Battle clapped the ledger shut. “Come. Follow me.”

  2

  “HAVE A SEAT, Constable. Take off that coat, if you wish,” Battle said as he hung both his own coat and gray bowler on a corner tree.

  “That’s all right, sir,” he said, watching as his breath steamed in the chill. I see it; that’s from me; I’m real. Battle … well, the man must have the internal temperature of a flounder. Behind, he heard Black Dog pad to flank the office’s only visitor’s chair while Battle fussed with an oil lamp. The office, which was left of the front desk and down a long and empty corridor, was nondescript. A gas lamp that probably hadn’t been lit in months hung from the ceiling. A rank of mounted and locked pigeonholes lined the far wall. Besides Battle’s desk and chair, there was a clothes tree and a mirror suspended over a low washstand.

  “So.” Drawing down the wick, Battle eyed him over the round rim of his lamp’s slightly sooty shade. “That was quite the experience. Have a drink with me, Doyle. Take the chill off.” When he hesitated, Battle’s mouth turned in a grin made a touch ghoulish by the dance of light under his chin. “Come now. You’re in need of a restorative.”

  “Why, yes, I’d be pleased, sir. Thank you.” At the thought of a nice mouthful of whiskey or brandy or gin—anything would do—his mouth watered. He waited as Battle withdrew a silk pouch, secured with black ribbon, from an inside pocket of his suit jacket. Untying the ribbon, he unrolled the pouch to reveal an impressive array of iron and brass keys, many of which were long gray skeletons, and all secured on silk loops. God. His eyebrows crawled for his hair. He knew every inspector had such a collection, though Battle’s was huge, at least a dozen keys. He wondered what they all unlocked. Man could get through every door in Lambeth with those. Hospitals, chemists’ shops, doctors’ offices. Every door in this station, too, he imagined.

  Inserting a small, ornate brass key into the lock of his topmost desk drawer, Battle slipped a hand inside his desk. There followed the crisp click of a hidden catch, and then the inspector was plucking a bottle, three-quarters full of amber liquid, from a lower drawer on the right. “Don’t know why I bother with that secret latch,” Battle said, pouring liquor into shot glasses. “Every man in this station could pick this lock.”

  “If he knew where to look.” From the color, he thought the alcohol might be rye or brandy. Don’t care what it is, so long as it actually tastes like something.

  Black Dog nosed his left boot. Don’t let’s get our hopes up.

  “There is that. I suppose the compartment appeals to my sense of the dramatic.” Battle pushed a shot glass across the desk. “We’ve all got secrets.”

  Was Battle implying something? “I suppose we do, sir.”

  “Yes.” That silver squint never wavered. “Well, here we are.” Battle raised his own glass. “To your health, Doyle.”

  “The same,” he said, though he felt his smile suddenly tighten to a dead man’s rictus. It don’t smell like nothing. There was no sting of alcohol to nip his nose. Shite, no, can’t be! At the first taste, he thought colored water was probably better, and he could feel the well of a sob in his chest. This isn’t fair, it’s not right!

  It is, Black Dog murmured, what you deserve.

  “Something wrong, Doyle?” Battle peered over his glass.

  “No, sir.” Tossing back his tasteless drink, he inhaled through his teeth against a phantom burn, purely for show. And damn you, Kramer. “Very nice, sir. Thank you.”

  “Not at all. So, this case,” Battle said, easily, as he refilled both glasses and then pushed to his feet. Crossing on a metallic jangle behind Doyle, Battle unlocked the drop-down cover of a pigeonhole and proceeded to riffle through slots. “What’s on your mind, Constable?”

  “Well, sir,” he said, straining to keep the inspector in view. It was odd, and a little disorienting, having the man hover behind his back like that. A tad like Black Dog, come to think of it. “I don’t pretend to understand why you won’t let the doctor examine those bodies, but what about the girl?”

  “What do you mean?” There was a creak and then the sound of a pigeonhole mount being locked. Wandering back round to his desk, the inspector picked apart a twine bow and began to unroll a thick tube of papers on his desk.

  Was that a case file? Must be; desk sergeant’s ledger records incidents, but the reports are filed in pigeonholes. “Sh
e says she don’t remember exactly what she saw afore she went tearing out of … well, wherever she’d been held. But I was thinking that maybe those bodies might jog something loose.”

  “Interesting idea, but out of the question. Only three of the corpses are recognizable, and to be truthful, they’re really quite upsetting. A touch macabre, actually. The fewer to see them, the better.”

  “Oh.” The bodies must be horrors. How to find out where they were? “Well, perhaps a photographer? Make some pictures that we could take around for her to—”

  “Are you pumping me for information, Doyle? You’ve never demonstrated such initiative before. Someone put you up to this.” Battle leveled him a look. “Kramer, wasn’t it? Come now, don’t lie. I’ll know if you do. The man’s obsessed.”

  “No, sir.” Shite. He was smarting, too. No initiative? Arse. “That is … yeah, Dr. Kramer did ask. He’s very keen on those bodies. I guess they must be quite a puzzle.” He paused to allow for Battle to interject, but when nothing came, he pushed on. “I said I couldn’t help him. But his interest made me curious.”

  “I see.” Battle’s mouth worked as if against a bad taste. Tossing back his drink, he played with his empty glass. “What did he offer you in return?”

  “Offer?”

  “Oh, don’t be coy.” This close, the light from the oil lamp washed Battle’s skin the color of bone. Only the man’s silvery eyes showed any life, and they were mirrors the lamp fired. “Kramer wants the bodies, and he’ll use whatever means necessary.” Battle ran a pensive finger over three interlocking metal circles that made up the intricate bow of a brass key. “He’d be prepared with a reward. So what did he promise you?”

  “Food.” It was the first thing that came out of his mouth. Thank Christ, it also had the benefit of being plausible.

  “You lack for victuals?” Battle’s gaze raked his body. “Yes, you’re a touch hollow-eyed, but aren’t we all. How did he take your refusal?”