The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker

by Leanna Renee Hieber

  As soon as the door closed behind Miss Parker, Alexi opened a drawer, withdrew his notebook and hurled it onto his desk. His pen flew. He did not allow himself to think of the implications of this previously unknown anxiety that was building inside.

  “Miss Parker,” he said aloud as he wrote. “A ghost? Not my goddess in colours, but in fact the mirror opposite. Colourless. And yet, uniquely beautiful. Could her ghostly yet angelic appearance actually be a warning? Is she to be trusted or avoided? Why am I not dismissing her entirely, as I ought? She is a student! Why dare I even consider her?

  “More the goddess is that ineffable Miss Linden, with her own clues, all those familiar words…And yet I sense in Miss Parker a gentleness similar to my goddess of two decades past. Which of them is the true seventh—if indeed either? Neither gentleness nor beauty, no matter how unusual, make Prophecy!”

  He slammed the book closed, knowing the fate of the world rested on his shoulders.

  “I’ve found them. I’m Lucille Linden now. Isn’t that a lovely name?” the servant of shadow said proudly, having crossed the threshold back home. She spun, appreciating the rustle of her fine, blood-coloured dress, the exotic sculpting of her body beneath her corset, the absurdity of her bustle, the useless but fashionable layers of doubled skirts.

  Darkness growled. “Why. Do. They. Live?”

  “Come now!” Lucille smiled broadly. “Let me have a bit of fun. One of them in particular I want to toy with. How I’ve missed mortal games.”

  “Is she with them?”

  “No. I’ve not seen her. Or anything like her. Perhaps she’s abandoned them, too—just like she did you.” She couldn’t help pointing this out, and shrugged when Darkness growled. “Oh, stop. I’m sure she’ll be along soon; she can never stay away. She’s so pathetically predictable.”

  “Don’t be long,” Darkness commanded.

  Lucille waved a languid hand. “Remember my warning. I want to be important. For that reason, I shall take the time I please and make my own choices, thank you very much. I don’t see that you have much alternative.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Reaching down into one of his office’s myriad hiding places, Alexi withdrew a small wooden container and handed it to Josephine. Opening the lid, she saw how the sealed vials of coloured powder shimmered in the fading light. Her slender fingers closed protectively around the box. Alexi’s alchemical study hadn’t been for naught. He’d found a way to transfer blue fire directly into paint pigment. Useful, for The Guard’s artist to employ upon her ethereal canvases.

  “Use it sparingly,” he cautioned. “It’s a powerful mixture this time. I eagerly await your creation, Josie. I expect it to be ravishing.”

  There was a knock upon the door.

  “Come.”

  A slender figure entered the room, shawl draped around her bowed head as if she were votaress for a goddess. Per the professor’s request, she threw back her wrap and removed her dark glasses.

  “Ah, Miss Parker!” Alexi boomed.

  The figure jumped, smiling nervously at the professor before her eyes riveted to his lovely companion in her impeccable gown. Josephine was similarly taken aback by the sight of this unparalleled girl, and she gasped upon surveying those unearthly, crystalline eyes.

  The newcomer shoved her tinted glasses back on her face, tossed her shawl over her head and turned to the professor with a strained expression, as if he had betrayed her. “Forgive me, Professor, I did not mean to interrupt—” She choked, stealing another furtive glance at his ravishing companion before moving toward the door.

  “No, no,” Alexi assured her. “I’m completing a matter of business. Miss Parker, this is Mademoiselle Josephine Belledoux, an esteemed colleague of mine. Josephine, this is Miss…” He hesitated, realizing he did not know how to continue. He did not know her first name.

  “Percy,” she supplied.

  “Thank you. Miss Percy Parker, one of my students.”

  “Enchantee, mademoiselle.” Josephine bowed her head.

  “Merci beaucoup, mademoiselle, et moi aussi.”

  “Ah, Français!” Josephine beamed, basking in the warmth of her native language.

  “Miss Parker is adept at many tongues,” Alexi explained.

  Percy gazed ruefully at the floor. “Unfortunately my talent doesn’t apply to mathematics.” Contemplating the presence of this other woman in Professor Rychman’s office, she felt her heart fall in an alarming fashion.

  “That’s quite all right, Miss Parker,” Josephine said softly. “Personally, I detest mathematics and all sciences. So I paint.”

  “Oh?” Percy looked up at this woman who was surely years older than she, yet showed no sign apart from the contrast of her hair. Dark brown locks were swept up into an elaborate knot, and two white streaks framed her face.

  “It would seem, Miss Belledoux, that you two are of like minds. Miss Parker would rather be sketching her dreams than paying attention in class.”

  Percy cringed.

  “Can you blame the young lady?” the Frenchwoman replied, kindly.

  The professor ignored his friend’s smile, gesturing broadly to the south wall and speaking for Percy’s edification. “My paintings are Miss Belledoux’s own, and I am in the process of commissioning a new piece.”

  “Your work is tres belle, mademoiselle,” Percy breathed, looking around.

  “Merci, ma amie.”

  “Miss Belledoux, I must now uphold my duty as Prometheus, bearing the torch of education to darkened minds,” the professor declared.

  Josephine raised an eyebrow. “Well, aren’t we se donner de grand airs?” She bowed and moved to the door, giving Percy a knowing grin. “Don’t let him fool you into thinking he bears any such light,” she whispered. “It’s been nothing but darkness for ages.”

  Percy couldn’t help herself, and the two women shared a smile.

  “Excuse me!” The professor shook his head and glowered. “There will be no slander in this shrine of knowledge!”

  “All right, so he’s brilliant,” Josephine offered, but she winked as she opened the door to the hall. “It’s his social graces that leave something to be desired.”

  “Out, I say!”

  “Au revoir!” And with a carefree laugh, the Frenchwoman disappeared.

  “Infidels, every one of them,” the professor muttered, gesturing for Percy to sit.

  “Who?”

  The professor sighed, irritated, searching for his pen. “My colleagues. Social graces? Ha! I hope you’re ready to learn something.”

  “Certainly.”

  “You’ve forgotten,” the professor remarked, gesturing.

  “Oh.” Percy removed her shawl again. Sliding her glasses from her face, she steeled herself a moment for the brief flash of distaste she was so accustomed to seeing. But the professor launched directly into his lesson without a moment’s pause, never once shying away from the sight of her. He hadn’t changed, and the fact filled her with joy.

  The professor could condense entire philosophies into a graspable twenty-minute speech. Nonetheless, when he turned again to the processes of mathematics, Percy’s eyes fell on the open book of Shakespeare at the corner of his desk. She leaned in and saw notes and scribbles in the margins.

  The professor, evidently aware she had lost focus, sighed. “Miss Parker, what now…? Oh. Hamlet?”

  “I promise I was listening, sir. It’s just that this play is my favourite.”

  “I acquiesce,” he muttered to himself. “The grip of this mathematical theory is not to be regained. And so, if nothing else, I’ll commend your theatrical taste.” After a moment he inquired, “Have you heard of the recent production in town where Hamlet marries Ophelia at the end?”

  Percy’s jaw dropped. “What!”

  “I suppose this day and age cannot be trusted with a good tragedy. So, you do not approve?”

  “Of course not, Professor! I hope you’d give me that much credit!”

&n
bsp; “As a professed Romantic, I wasn’t entirely sure.”

  Percy rallied a meek rebuttal. “I have standards, Professor.”

  “Indeed? Well, get out of my office before I raise your standard of attention. I may have even had you for fifteen minutes before you wandered off.”

  “Professor, I assure you that I always listen—”

  He shrugged. “Never mind, I have work to do. I must go home and gather my wits for a whole night of study. I have a ride ahead of me.” But as the professor shooed her from his desk, his face seized with a flash of discomfort. His hand flew to his temple.

  “Professor, I’m s-sorry,” Percy stammered. “Are you all right, sir?”

  “As my ‘social graces leave something to be desired,’ will you be so kind as to see yourself out? Good evening, Miss Parker,” he replied, clutching his forehead.

  Realizing he wanted her companionship no longer, Percy stumbled out. “Good evening, Professor, do feel better.” But as she tried to shake him from her mind for the rest of the day, it was a matter as difficult as grasping mathematics.

  The female calling herself Miss Lucille Linden leaned out the window of the tiny room she’d graciously accepted in the floors above La Belle et La Bête. Her new friends were eating dinner below. Feigning illness, she had declined their generous invitation. Instead, she stared out over London’s sooty, dirty rooftops.

  A growl sounded, and she turned to see a cloud of horror awaiting direction. “Go ahead,” she said.

  The cloud turned tail and dove through the roof. There came a cry from below, and then the voices of Lord Withersby, Miss Thompson, Mr. Carroll and the Irishwoman introduced as Ms. Connor. The foursome sounded afraid but determined. There were the continued noises of a fracas.

  Lucille grinned, her mouth watering. “Listen to them play!” she crowed.

  A knock on her door and a strained command interrupted her pleasure. “Miss Linden,” a voice called out, “it’s Josephine here. There’s an intruder down below so you must lock yourself in. The gentlemen are taking care of him, all right?”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Lucille replied, ducking back inside the window and feigning innocence.

  She appreciated the illusion they were trying to keep up. They assumed, of course, that she had no idea of their true nature. They also assumed that she was a harmless, powerless young woman. It was time to be honest on both sides.

  Though…perhaps honesty was not ideal at this exact moment. Especially not if one of them was about to die.

  An infernal thing the likes of which The Guard had never seen passed through the structure of La Belle et La Bête and descended upon their table. Snarling horrific, snapping teeth in their faces and shredding tablecloths, the abomination was a huge cloud of black smog that became one dog and then one hundred, a chimerical, shifting creature that was at first incorporeal and could pass through walls, but which then flickered into something deadly with claws, jaws and horrible red eyes. In the next moment it became a cloud again, impossible to catch.

  “What in God’s name is this?” Rebecca shrieked, scooping up her wool skirts as she spun and dashed to the door, her companions following. “Josie, Miss Linden’s upstairs. We’ll not test her with a thing such as this. Have her lock herself in!”

  Josephine raced upstairs.

  Elijah backed down the alley outside, staring at the demon cloud with horrified fascination as it followed, floating at the level of their heads and taking up nearly the entire width of the alley with its bulky canine body and flickering profusion of heads. It hunched forward, ready to attack.

  Michael took Rebecca’s hand on one side, and Jane took the other. A powerful wind whipped around them. Josephine, having bade Miss Linden stay within, swiftly joined their ranks. She took Michael’s left hand.

  “Elijah, come,” Rebecca commanded.

  The beast lunged, but Withersby ducked out of the way. “Please tell me this is just the Black Dog of Newgate,” he exclaimed, joining his friends in their circle of clasped hands. London’s most gruesome tale of spectral revenge was much less horrifying than entertaining thoughts of a whole new breed.

  Rebecca shook her head. “No,” she replied. “We’ve never seen this.”

  The dog whipped around to face them, snarling. But as it prepared its next attack, Rebecca shouted a command in the ancient language of The Guard. The hellish thing cocked its head, opened its many maws wide and jumped—only to disperse at the last moment into a grey mist and pass through them.

  At the other end of the alley the creature coalesced and hurtled off in the opposite direction. The Guard gave chase, Elijah trailing after, cleaning up any mess that might give away their battle. They all gave thanks that none of London’s passersby could see ghosts, as their spectral quarry would have caused a riot. They simply had to deal with being considered lunatics.

  As they ran, Josephine sought to pinpoint Elijah’s reference. “Wait. The Black Dog…Was that the sorcerer?”

  “Yes,” Rebecca answered, panting as they turned a corner. “The scholar imprisoned in Newgate centuries ago for sorcery.”

  “The one where the starving inmates ate his body and then a huge, avenging black dog tore them limb from limb?”

  “That would be the one. But this is not that dog.”

  Michael seemed just as eager to make this beast something they knew. “What about the stench of decay that follows the Newgate dog? You smell it now, don’t you?” There was comfort in the familiar, even one of London’s most macabre spectres. More importantly, the Newgate dog was something they could best. They already had.

  “No,” Rebecca replied, breathless. “I smell brimstone. This is not that beast! Do you feel anything in your blood? Any of you? I feel nothing. We can’t track this, we can’t sense it…” Any further commentary was cut off as she stumbled, losing her footing on a cobblestone. Michael was quick to catch her arm. “Damnable heels,” she muttered, righting herself. “Why don’t they make a boot a woman can run in?”

  “Hello, friends!” A fierce form on a black steed and trailing black robes appeared at the opposite end of the street. Staring up at the floating, shifting beast, Alexi cried, “What the hell is this?”

  A snarl and a swipe knocked his hat off his head. Alexi growled right back, jumping off his horse and shrieking a curse in the ancient language of The Guard. Blue flame leaped from his hands, and it singed the spectral dog’s many noses. The blue flame streamed a circle around the shifting cur, which hunkered down opposite Alexi and seemed to be tensing its haunches. However, instead of attacking Alexi, when it found a weakness in its fiery containment the beast turned and swarmed back the way it had come, tearing off down the street in a gruesome splintering of canine forms—and through Elijah. Lord Withersby groaned and collapsed in a heap.

  “Coward, face me!” Alexi cried, mounting his horse after glancing down worriedly at his unconscious friend. Elijah had been swept up into Jane’s arms, her healing powers at the ready—if she was not already too late.

  Rebecca ran toward Alexi’s horse. “Alexi, don’t you dare—” But he was already after it, yelling curses and chasing the monster down the next avenue with bolts of blue fire.

  While he knew he couldn’t destroy the hellish thing on his own, Alexi felt the least he could do was reverse the game, be the fox tracking the hound. For that reason he gave chase, spurring his stallion, Prospero, into areas of London he preferred to forget, the city’s dark and dirty underbelly. Urchins, beggars and streetwalkers beckoned, unaware of the terror that had just flashed past. He hissed at their advances, stricken into anger at their desperation.

  One particular young woman, barely more than a child, called up to him, asking if he wanted company for the evening. Alexi gritted his teeth and cried, “Find shelter, for God’s sake! Don’t you know something terrible is on the loose?” He flung coins into the street as he passed.

  “I know, sir,” the consumptive waif called back, darting to pick up his offer
ings. “Where lurks the Ripper? But we’ve nowhere to hide. We’ve got no choice. Bless ye for the shilling!”

  It was too much. Alexi reined in his horse, suddenly turning back toward the form silhouetted in dim gaslight, locks of hair piled haphazardly beneath a moth-eaten bonnet. She, thinking perhaps that she had procured a client after all, gave him a practiced, inviting look far more desperate than attractive.

  He shook his head and emptied the entirety of his pockets into her hands. “Find as many of your lot as you can and take them to spend the night in safe shelter.”

  The young woman gazed up in awe. “Are ye trackin’ ‘im, then, good sir? Are you the detective?”

  “Of sorts, dear girl,” Alexi replied.

  She reached up to stroke his horse’s black neck. “Then you’re our guardian angel.”

  Reins in hand, Alexi could neither acknowledge the sentiment nor look the waif in the eye, knowing he must fail at guarding all the poor wretches society cast onto the street. “Don’t take long, and don’t part company,” he commanded gruffly, and set off.

  “I won’t, sir!” she cried. “Bless you, sir. I was a friend of Annie Chapman, may she rest in peace! By God, she’s lookin’ out for me by sendin’ you this night!”

  These wards were the poorest, the most hopeless. Their inhabitants were the dregs, hapless souls who had come to this city seeking fortune and finding no love in the bosom of the empire. All street lamps ended at Commercial Street and Whitechapel Road. Alexi had forgotten that fact, because when summoned here in the past, in the course of his work, there had always been ethereal light to guide his way. Spectres cast their own illumination. Tonight, the sector was black. Even the ghosts were hiding.

  Heaven must have felt a bit of pity, for the clouds above thinned to allow a dim grey moonlight to filter down. It was just enough for navigation at a slow plod. Prospero stamped impatiently, messily splashing muddy puddles and then clacking forward across the cobblestones.

  Past a wide corner just inside the dim sooty haze of Duffield’s Yard, just off a set of train tracks, Alexi drew the horse to a halt; he’d caught sight of something amorphous rustling in a space between two miserable brick buildings. He could only make out sounds, however, because there was a black hole ahead, a pitch-black deeper than night itself, snuffing out all existence. Alexi gave a cry, shouted a command, a verse in an ancient rite of which he was the master. The shadows shifted. Two bloodred eyes fixed on him. Then ten. Then came a swish of air and a muffled cry, changing suddenly into an ungodly gurgling noise. There came the smell of blood.