by April White
I laid there staring at the ceiling for a long time after he left, trying to sort through the huge pot of emotions the conversation had stirred. Finally I gave it up as pointless navel-gazing and drifted back to sleep.
“We’ll need another canister of oil for the lantern. This one’s running low…” Archer was making a list for Ringo and their lamplight was the first thing I saw when I woke up. “And maybe some dice or cards to keep her entertained when she’s awake?”
“I’m awake.”
I got a grin from Ringo and a relieved smile from Archer. It was nice to be greeted with that kind of enthusiasm. I looked at Ringo. “How was work?”
He grimaced. “Gosford had me repairing nets today. Bloody boring work. He asked after ye.”
“Please tell him I said hi.”
“He’ll be pleased.”
Then I turned to Archer. “Were you able to get your notebooks?”
He shook his head. “The office was locked up tight and I seem to have misplaced my key. I’ve been trying to avoid seeing the bishop since you came, but I’m afraid I’ll have to go to him for another key.”
“No you don’t. Ringo can get in.” I looked at him for confirmation and he shrugged.
“’Course I can.”
Archer looked uncertain. “But that would be illegal.”
“No it isn’t. It’s self-preservation. You wouldn’t want the bishop to think you were careless with your key. Not with the work you’re doing for him in there.”
Archer sighed. “You’re right, of course. Ringo, I would be very grateful if, after you’ve been out to the shops, you could help me get into the bishop’s office.”
I was proud of Archer for that, and Ringo grinned. “At your service, My not-a-Lord.” Archer grimaced at the name and Ringo and I both struggled to keep a straight face.
“So you’re going back out tonight. Right.”
I sat up and swung my legs off the bed. Both guys immediately busied themselves with some task that kept their eyes averted from my bare legs.
“Okay, gentlemen, I need a minute.”
Ringo scrambled to exit to room without a backward glance.
“Wait, Archer, do you have a T-shirt I could wear?” He looked at me uncomprehending, then realized he was looking at me and quickly shifted his eyes away. “A clean shirt. Do you have one?”
“Ah, of course. Yes, I keep an extra one in my rooms. I’ll get it for you.”
“Thank you. Would it be too much to ask for a bowl of water and a washcloth? I don’t think I can stand myself anymore.”
“Of course, I’ll send Ringo back with it straight away.”
He bolted from the room as fast as Ringo had, five minutes later Ringo was knocking on my door with a basin of warm water and a rough towel.
“I’ll be right outside if you need anything.” The boy was suddenly very shy with me and could barely look me in the eyes. It was kind of cute to see he wasn’t all toughness and swagger.
“You’re the best, Ringo. Thank you.” I had answered the door wrapped in a sheet to preserve his modesty and as soon as the door was closed again, flung it back on the bed.
Oh to be clean. Ish. The rough towel actually did a decent job of scrubbing three days-worth of sweat and fever off my skin. And the water was just warm enough that I didn’t shiver. The second knock on the door came just as I’d finished washing my underwear and wringing them dry, so I wrapped back up in my sheet to answer it.
A white shirt and a pair of black wool trousers were thrust in my face and the door pulled shut again. I could just see Archer behind the clothes, looking mortified at what I might be wearing.
“Your own trousers will invite too much attention.” He spoke through the door, like it was way too embarrassing to discuss face to face. And he meant my skinny jeans. He was right, of course, but it kind of surprised me that he noticed.
Victorian men were modest to the point of ridiculous as far as I was concerned. Archer the Vampire must be horrified by my generation’s wardrobe choices. But then again he’d lived through all the preceding ones, so maybe he’d gotten used to it all.
Archer had given me the equivalent of a poet’s shirt, basically a long white linen thing that was almost, but not quite, sheer, with a simple button-up collar that could be worn as a day shirt, or in a pinch, a nightshirt too. It was like silk on my skin and as I got dressed, I realized why men’s trousers were so baggy. There was no other place to put all that fabric when the shirt was tucked in. And as I already knew from before, Archer’s trousers were too big on me. Another trip to his rooms for a belt to cinch them at the waist and I could finish dressing.
It only took a couple of minutes before I was properly reassembled, and when I opened the door I burst out laughing.
The guys were propping up the wall on either side of the doorframe, trying to look casual and uninterested, and failing miserably. I invited them back inside.
“Thank you guys. I finally feel kind of human again.” I’d braided my hair tightly down my back since I still had no way to wash it, and dressed like I was, I thought I could pass as a man in 19th century London.
Ringo scrutinized my outfit critically. “You’ll have to wear a coat of course.”
“I have a sweater to cover the shirt, and the leather coat I came in.”
Ringo spoke to Archer, who hadn’t taken his frankly admiring eyes off me. “You’ll have another topcoat that’ll fit Saira?”
Archer finally blinked. “It’ll work over the sweater I think. Maybe a little big in the shoulders, but it should help.”
Ringo nodded. “Good.” Then to me. “Your coat is too strange. You’ll get noticed.”
Archer narrowed his eyes. “You’re not planning to take her outside like this?”
“You’re not planning to stop us, are you?” My voice was as officious as I could make it, and it seemed to work. Archer must have remembered he was dealing with a 21st century female who wouldn’t obey and barely even listened to him sometimes. His eyes darted back and forth between us.
“Right. Then I’m coming with you.”
Ringo was defiant. “I’m quite able to see to Saira on me own.”
“There is no doubt in my mind you could see to Saira on your own. But if I’m with you, one of us can stay with her while the other gets the supplies.”
“I was just going to bring her in with me.” Ringo sounded a little offended, but it was nothing compared to the expression on Archer’s face.
“To a bawdy house? Are you joking?”
Ringo’s face fell to somewhere around his knees. “Oh, right. That. I’d forgotten.” It was like watching a tennis match between these two until I finally focused in on the words.
“A bawdy house? You mean a place where…” I searched for the right word for Victorian times. There wasn’t one that didn’t bother me. “A place where whores work?” Apparently my word choice had shocked them. Me too, if I was honest with myself. I kind of hated that word. The job was the job, and women had been doing that job for all of history. But words have power, and that one took power away and made it seem sordid and dirty.
“Miss Elian!”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh don’t ‘Miss Elian’ me, Archer. I didn’t know what other word to use. ‘Women who sell themselves for sex’ takes longer.”
“She has a point. It’s what a bloke would say.”
Archer practically growled at Ringo. “Don’t encourage her.”
“Don’t boss me around either. Why are we going to a bawdy house anyway?”
The guys looked at each other, clearly uncomfortable. Finally Ringo spoke. “I’ve heard tell of a French girl there who wears underthings like yours. I was going to ask her to get some for you.”
Oh my God. How very sweet that these two guys could have given any thought to my comfort, and yet how totally disgusting that they might have bought some off a French hooker. I suppressed a shudder.
“You don’t have to worry about my wardrobe an
ymore. It’s been taken care of. If we could buy a bar of soap so I can do laundry, that would be great. But if that’s the only reason for the bawdy house visit, we’re good there.”
The guys looked so relieved I giggled. Archer avoided my eyes and strode across the room to the table at the far side. He grabbed the list he’d been making and blew out the lantern. It was time to go.
A Night Abroad
Things felt different in London since the last time I’d been here. Maybe it was because I actually felt a little more educated about what I had gotten into. Walking with Archer and Ringo helped too. I adjusted my stride to match theirs, a slight swagger for Ringo and unapologetic confidence for Archer.
When we’d gotten outside the King’s College grounds, Archer had tried to give Ringo his shopping list. Ringo took it, but shoved it deep into a pocket without looking at it. Because he couldn’t read, of course. Archer seemed completely unaware.
So I asked to see the list and after glancing through it quickly, tucked it into my own pocket. I was sure Ringo had memorized the list while Archer made it, but I had his back just in case.
With the exception of the ‘ladies unmentionables’ everything else on the list was fairly straightforward in terms of supplies. Archer was taking a huge risk by hiding me in a King’s College tower, and the less comings and goings that could be done by any of us, the better.
Ringo wouldn’t let either of us go into shops with him because he said our clothes were too fine and he’d never get deals like he could alone. So Archer and I loitered outside, talking in low tones about everything from Ringo’s former occupation to Archer’s studies.
I learned that Archer had been shut out of the bishop’s confidence since I was last there, and it seemed as though Bishop Wilder had holed himself up in the chapel for more and more time each day.
“Does he keep an office there?”
“His office is upstairs, but he keeps a small study in the room behind the altar. He’s never there though, even when he’s left word he will be, so I don’t know where he goes.”
“What about your investigation into the Ripper? How’s that going?”
“Because there’ve been no more murders, the bishop seems to have lost interest in the case. I’ve continued my own work though, unbeknownst to him.”
“And your theory that it’s a Vampire doing the killing?”
“Well, since the police received the ‘From Hell’ letter last week the investigation has been madness. I haven’t been able to see Inspector Lusk at all, and I’m not entirely comfortable showing my face at the station in case the bobby who saw us at Dutfield’s Yard is there.”
“I guess that could get a little awkward.”
“Indeed.” The wry smile on his face was cute, and I struggled with myself over the fact that I noticed.
“Our history books say the police never caught him, the murders just… stopped. Besides the one on November 9th. There’s a photo of Mary Kelly’s slashed-up body in her room that’s pretty disgusting. But after that it’s done. No more Ripper murders in London.”
Archer considered. “I do hope your advert is able to find Miss Mary Kelly before that happens.”
“Like I’ve said before, I don’t know if I can change anything, but I can’t know it and not say something. It’s not right. And if she answers the ad, at a minimum we’ll know where the Ripper will be on the 9th, and maybe he’ll lead us to my mom.”
“Perhaps the police do catch him after all, or something else entirely happens to him.”
“Some TV show speculated that the Ripper emigrated to America.”
Archer looked confused. “TV show?”
I shook my head. “Sorry, it would take too long to explain. The point is, there could be a million reasons why the killings stop, including the one that maybe you catch him.”
Archer grimaced. “That’s unlikely at the rate I’m going. I’m hardly the most effective investigator the Ripper case has. There’s just one bit of information I have that perhaps no one else would know to link the victims. Not even the bishop knows the extent of my research on this.”
“What?”
Archer hesitated so long I thought he wasn’t going to speak. Finally he practically whispered. “The victims all had links to Clocker bloodlines.”
Nothing like tossing a bomb into the room and calling it a firecracker. I stared at Archer in horror. “How is that even possible?”
“It seems weak even to my ears, and none of them was more than a quarter-time.”
“But all those women had Clocker blood in them? Even the two...?” I couldn’t finish the question, but Archer was already nodding. “After their names were released I did the research. The genealogy work I’d done for the bishop gave me the family names and it didn’t take much more to make the connections.”
I’m pretty sure my mouth was hanging open as I stared at Archer in the orange light from the gaslamp, and I could tell he was very uncomfortable with my scrutiny.
Just then, Ringo emerged from the shop with a bag under his arm and a proud grin on his face. He held out some coins.
“I told you I’d get change.”
“You keep it, for a job well done. As you yourself pointed out, if I’d gone in I likely would have been charged double.”
“Well, in that case, the pint’s on me.”
We found a pub that wasn’t too crowded and took a table at the back near the fire. Ringo ordered a hard cider for me when I told him I didn’t like beer. It came in a mug and tasted like apple juice gone off, but I sipped a little to be polite and mostly just sat back and listened to the conversations around me.
The only women in the place were behind the bar or serving the customers, who seemed to be a mix of working men and students. The three of us blended with the clientele as well as a fifteen year-old ex-thief, a girl from the future masquerading as a young man, and a second-son-of-a-Lord turned-student could be.
I stumbled as we left the pub and both guys were instantly at my elbows practically propelling me along the street toward King’s College. But as much as I wanted to rebel, I did need their support. I’d gotten really weak from the fever that might have been something like swine flu, and I seriously hoped I hadn’t given it to Archer or Ringo. It’s the kind of thing that would run through 1888 like the black plague.
The thought made me go shaky in the knees and they clutched me with tighter grips. “You guys took care not to get too close to me when I was sick, didn’t you?”
They looked surprised. “Well, we had to nurse you, didn’t we?”
“But if you got too close I could have given you the germs. You could be getting sick right now.”
“Saira, you were in your undergarments. How close could either of us have possibly gotten?”
I shut up. Nothing I could say would make a difference to these guys in their Victorian modesty. Obviously someone had kept me hydrated and changed the bed sheets when I sweated through them. I just hoped that by some miracle whatever virus had taken me out would miss them both.
We slipped inside the King’s College grounds and made it upstairs without running into anyone. “Wait. Your office.”
Archer was fumbling with a key attached to a long chain as we waited to enter the tower. “We’ll get you upstairs first.”
“Unlock the door and I can make it upstairs myself. You guys need to get in there while no one’s around.”
Ringo looked at Archer. “She’s right. The guards do their rounds every hour. We’ve got fifteen minutes if we go now.”
Archer sighed as his key finally fit into the lock. “Okay, but if you can’t make it up the stairs, just wait here for us. We’ll be right back.’ I nodded and entered the stairwell. The guys closed the door and ran off down the hall. I started climbing, but even holding onto the handrail I felt weak and exhausted. I made it to the first landing and sunk to the ground. My heart was pounding so hard from exertion I felt like I’d just run a marathon. And maybe in my conditio
n, I had.
I needed to get my strength back, but it was hard to do when I was trapped in a tower all day like Rapunzel. The sound of a key in a door startled me out of my revere. I almost called out to Archer to come and help me up when I realized the door being unlocked was above me, not below.
Crap! The landing I was sitting on was fairly large, and part of it was entirely in shadow. As long as whoever was coming didn’t have a light, I might not be seen. I quietly scooted to the back of the landing, made myself as small and dark as I could, and held my breath.
I felt a sudden warmth come off my body, through the pores in my skin, and I worried that maybe I’d gotten the fever back. But then I realized I was warding myself. I hoped it worked again.
Two men came down the stairs. They were speaking in whispers so I couldn’t hear what they said. They had to be men because women weren’t allowed in this wing, not even servants.
As they descended I could make out the odd word of their whispers. “…Tower room…” and “someone sleeping there…”
Crap. Crap.
Okay, if I survived the next five minutes I had to find a new place to stay while I recovered my strength.
The whispers were silent for a moment and the only sound was their footsteps on the stone stairs. The heat of my ward hovered over my skin, but it left me cold, huddled in my little dark corner. I willed myself not to shiver.
The men got to my landing and fortunately, they didn’t carry a light. A wave of revulsion and fear hit me so suddenly I nearly gasped out loud. I felt it in my gut and instantly recognized the reaction. At least one of the men was a Monger.
I used every last ounce of strength to hold perfectly still, yet somehow it may not have been enough. One of the men stopped suddenly and sniffed the air.
“Whatsit?” The other man’s whisper sounded thick and accented.
The other whisper sent a chill down my spine. “I just caught a scent I thought I recognized.” Who has that kind of smell-sense? I mean I washed, but not thoroughly. The only thing I could smell was fear, which seemed to roll off me in waves.