Manners and Monsters, #1

by Tilly Wallace

  “Not an easy thing when your wife is the patient, old chap. But I think the viscount here is keen to hear how you discovered what the women needed to keep them going, and how that might affect his investigation.” Sir Manly’s tone was solemn but bracing as he prodded his contemporary.

  “Of course.” Sir Hugh let go of the mantel. “It was while I removed her legs that there was an incident close to camp. Our soldiers fought a decisive but messy skirmish with the enemy. I was focused on concluding the double amputation on Seraphina, and failed to notice that Mrs Edgar had escaped her captivity.”

  “The battle drew her.” It took no effort for Wycliff to conjure the scene in his mind. Death had a particular stench that was hard to escape. Did the Afflicted have better noses when dead, or did their ravenous state enhance their senses?

  Sir Hugh nodded. “Quite. I believe the odour attracted her. We have all seen battles—the bodies scattered with a variety of injuries. There are often blows or shots to the head and the brains of soldiers spilled over the ground. She fell upon the remains to satisfy her unnatural hunger. That was when Lady Tennent joined her friend. The odour had likewise drawn her away from camp and she, too, fell on the dead soldiers.”

  War does strange things to men. Some become inured to violence, while a few are driven mad by it. While Wycliff could easily summon the memory of a battlefield strewn with fallen men, his mind shied away from imagining the desecration those women had committed. “I assume the women were discovered?”

  “A group of British soldiers found them. The two of them were cracking open the skulls of the dead with rocks and shovelling handfuls of brains into their mouths.” The surgeon beat a rhythm on the mantel with his short nails, like the thrum of men marching in time.

  Wycliff swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. “Even in the aftermath of a battle, that would have been a disgusting sight.”

  The drumbeat fell silent and Sir Hugh’s hand dropped to his side. “The soldiers were enraged to find the women eating their fallen comrades. They opened fire. Bullets riddled their bodies, but they couldn’t stop feeding.”

  How do you kill something that is already dead? “Did the soldiers cease firing when they realised bullets were ineffective?”

  “Yes. So they switched to their swords.” Sir Hugh returned to the low table for his glass of water as silence dropped over the room.

  There was no need for him to expand. Wycliff could fill in the blanks. He had seen men in the throes of battle rage and he suspected that little had remained of the two women once the soldiers had vented their anger. There was one point that itched in his mind, though. Bullets hadn’t stopped the women as no heart beat in their chests. Surely swords would also be ineffective? “Did swords halt their feeding frenzy?”

  Sir Hugh blew out a deep breath. “Despite my studies over the last few years, I am no closer to discovering what keeps the Afflicted animated apart from saying it’s magic. We have learned that injuries that would be fatal to an ordinary person are but an inconvenience to them. Despite hacking their bodies in pieces, the women still sought to feed. Severed fingers reached for brain matter in the grass to carry like ants to lips that opened and closed, waiting to be fed. Feet shuffled to other pieces. The soldiers built a bonfire and let the flames consume what was left of Mrs Edgar and Lady Tennent.”

  “And that was how you learned what they craved and that only fire can put an end to an Afflicted.” Which knowledge had led to Messieurs Unwin and Alder becoming wealthy purveyors of human brains. Many palms had been liberally greased with coin to keep that information out of the newspapers. It was something of an open secret. People knew, but didn’t want to know at the same time. The less attention it drew, the easier it was to pretend it didn’t happen. Until one of the Afflicted started dining on the servants. “As informative as this has been, how is it relevant to my current investigation?”

  Sir Manly twisted one end of his fancifully curled moustache. “Murder requires a motive, Wycliff. You have been focused on an Afflicted satisfying a hunger. Sir Hugh is expanding your knowledge of potential motives.”

  The large surgeon laced his fingers together. “When I had finished amputating Seraphina’s legs, she urged me to go investigate. She said the smell was making her stomach grumble and was most compelling and, at long last, she thought it might be something she could eat. I found the soldiers disposing of her companions. From what I saw, even in their dismembered state, the wounds were beginning to heal. If they had not been burned, I believe the women would have pieced themselves back together. The craving is the body’s way of signalling what they needed in order to heal.”

  The French had it within their power to create an army that could never be stopped. Soldiers who would keep on fighting even when dismembered. Yet they had used that power to contaminate face powder instead. No wonder they’d lost the war.

  Wycliff thought through the implications. “The Afflicted murderer could be seeking to heal a wound. You did suggest that last night.”

  “It would need to be a wound large enough that the Afflicted’s usual ration is insufficient. On the Peninsula, I took a brain back to our tent and mixed it with oats. I fed it to Seraphina and told her it was something the men were cooking outside. As she consumed the gruel, the amputation wounds healed completely. It did not reverse the older rot, though. An excess can heal recent wounds, but not anything older than a few weeks.”

  “An injury, then, that is perhaps less than a month old and serious enough to require two fresh brains, but located somewhere that it could be concealed to escape notice in company.” Or had the murderer consumed more? Wycliff had enquired of the Runners and magistrates for information about murders in London over the last month that might be similar.

  “Yes, given the level of feeding, I would say a rather large and nasty wound. I’m not sure how they could hide it and still attend the Loburn ball.” Sir Hugh unclasped his hands to wave them in the air several inches apart, as though imagining the size of such an injury.

  This was information Wycliff could use. The murderer would seek to conceal such an injury, but there might be signs in the way they carried or conducted themselves. “If they have now healed, they will be impossible to find.”

  “Unless there is another murder,” Sir Hugh said. “Or another motive.”

  Wycliff narrowed his eyes at the former field surgeon. “Another motive? What are you not telling me?”

  “One of the soldiers later remarked upon the scene on the battlefield. The women were making moaning noises as they ate. He likened it to the sounds of pleasure his wife made during the marital act.” Sir Hugh’s bushy eyebrows rose up and down.

  Wycliff’s eyebrows shot up in silent conversation with Sir Hugh’s. “They found pleasure in the act of consumption?”

  “Most of the Afflicted I have studied report a sense of enjoyment or fulfilment upon consuming their daily sliver. A feeling such as you or I might experience when savouring a fine brandy at the end of the day. The two unfortunate companions of Seraphina are the only examples we have of such wanton excess. Given that they had gone weeks without any sustenance, I cannot say if their frenzy was the result of trying to heal or if they were driven by pleasure. I’m sure you can extrapolate the heightened sensation an Afflicted may find in gluttony.”

  Now he understood why they had kept such knowledge from Miss Miles. Hardly an appropriate discussion to have with a maiden who would not understand the type of bliss derived. He had thought he hunted a murderer who sought to sate an appetite. He might still be right—he just had the wrong type of appetite. “Could an Afflicted become addicted to large feedings, such as a person who takes laudanum regularly?”

  Sir Hugh refilled his glass from the pitcher on the low table. “The majority of the Afflicted are able to control their habit, as might most of us with alcohol or laudanum. But just as some men become opium addicts or drunkards, there is a deficit of character that makes a very few of the Afflicted unabl
e to control their appetite.”

  What danger to society did the Afflicted women represent? “At the Loburn ball you told me of similar murders committed two years ago. What happened to those who could not control their hunger?”

  Sir Manly and Sir Hugh exchanged a long glance.

  “We have a location where they are interred, so as not to be a danger to the general population,” Sir Manly answered. “After the murders, we quickly identified and removed those Afflicted who could not control themselves and who presented a danger to others.”

  Wycliff stored the information away. He might have been looking at the problem from the wrong angle. Instead of looking for an Afflicted behind in their bill, he might need to look for any with recent injuries or one who exhibited a tendency to addiction when alive. Or perhaps, one who had escaped this carefully undisclosed location. “Could one have escaped and continued their murder spree?”

  “No. Lady Miles erected wards around the property and there is a constant guard. No one goes in or out without our knowledge,” Sir Manly said.

  Then someone had escaped their net two years ago. But how had they gone undetected for so long? “I asked Miss Miles if there was any difference to an Afflicted whether they consumed the brain of an aftermage or an ordinary individual. She did not know, but is this also intelligence you have withheld from her?”

  Sir Hugh huffed. “No. I keep very little from Hannah. That is not a line of enquiry we have thought to pursue. On the Peninsula, we simply didn’t have the records or the time to verify the origins of the donors I used to keep Seraphina in a stable condition. It is a possibility. You would also need to factor in that the murderer is consuming these minds fresh, whereas what Unwin and Alder supply is pickled.”

  “Both victims were aftermages,” Wycliff told them. “The Loburn footman was seventh generation, his ability described by his fellow servants as a vague tingling when someone upstairs required him. The cloakroom attendant possessed fifth-generation magic.” There were so many strands to this tangled web. Which ones were relevant and would lead him to the killer?

  Sir Hugh frowned as he considered the possibility. “If there is indeed a difference in the type of mind consumed, then it is possible our murderer may have developed a taste for magic.”

  Wycliff tugged at the thread, testing whether it would unravel or entangle him further. “And following that line, they may want to dine on something more powerful next time. How many third-generation aftermages are there in London?”

  Sir Manly blew out a breath that made the waxed ends of his moustache quiver. “Too many to watch them all.”

  At least Miss Miles wouldn’t be a target. The children of mages were as ordinary and powerless as those without a mage ancestor.

  No, a voice whispered from the depths of his mind. She isn’t ordinary. Far from it.

  17

  Wycliff walked down the wide stairs to the street with slow steps as he gathered his thoughts. The conversation with Sir Hugh Miles had been enlightening and had given him a new avenue to consider. The Afflicted murderer he sought could be seeking to heal a large wound, or more likely, they might have succumbed to a type of addiction and were gorging themselves on human minds in pursuit of pleasure.

  His afternoon spent at Unwin and Alder comparing client records to the list from the Loburn ball had revealed that six Afflicted had been present that night. Of them, only two had been present at The Harriers. Unless the Afflicted he sought didn’t use Unwin and Alder. That was a slim possibility, but one he would have to consider. Otherwise, he had only two suspects, neither of whom appeared to exhibit signs of substantial injury, nor did they appear to have the disheveled outward appearance of addicts.

  Wycliff dismissed Mr Jonathon Rowley; despite his attachment to Lady Gabriella, he couldn’t see how the man could be involved. What man would be a party to such ungodly appetites? How could any man kiss a mouth that had licked clean a still warm skull? While Lady Gabriella had a reputation for excess, that was more than met by the size of her father’s fortune. The woman already consumed two brains a month. Was that insufficient to curb her appetites?

  The late Lady Albright hovered near the bottom of his very short list. A heavily veiled woman had been seen outside The Harriers, but that wasn’t enough to assume it was she. It might not even have been one of the Afflicted, but a woman veiled for some other reason, such as a recent bereavement, or an unwillingness to let her identity be known at a boxing match.

  However, his review of Unwin and Alder’s records showed that Lady Albright received one delivery every six weeks—a regime that would leave her on the sharp edge of hunger. It wasn’t a big jump to imagine her supplementing her meagre diet. Except that ran contrary to the fresh intelligence he had obtained from Sir Hugh. Instinct whispered that mere hunger alone wasn’t a sufficient motive.

  He couldn’t completely remove the lady’s name as a suspect. Her husband had been present, jeering and drinking at a table up at the front. Who knew—the unfortunate woman might have followed her husband there to talk, but made it no farther than the cloakroom. All of society knew there was bad blood between them.

  There was something distasteful in how Albright paraded his much younger wife and her fecundity for all to see. He had even been heard to advise men in unsatisfactory marriages to follow his example and seek out a jar of infected face powder to give to their inconvenient wives.

  Wycliff made a mental note to pay a visit to the late Lady Albright and pick at her biggest wound—her husband. No woman could be as patient and understanding as Miss Miles painted her to be. He was sure that beneath the surface he would find simmering resentment ready to burst forth in a fit of murderous rage.

  As luck would have it, as he plowed southwest along the pavement with pedestrians jumping out of his way, he spied Miss Knightley on the street. She was accompanied by her mother and a bored-looking maid carrying an armload of parcels. All three were dressed in varying shades of brown and looked like three country mice in town for the day.

  Wycliff changed course to intercept them and planted himself in their way. He became an immovable obstacle they could not avoid. The small party halted and darted looks around him.

  “Miss Knightley, I have a quick request. I require you to hold out your hands.”

  The young woman curled her gloved hands closer to her body and looked to her mother, who hovered at her side. No breath quickened in her chest and she dropped the pretence of inhaling and exhaling.

  Did she conceal an injury under her clothing, or had two fresh brains in the last week healed her? Miss Miles had remarked on the lack of rot evident in Miss Knightley. Perhaps she kept the rot at bay by dining on servants descended from mages. Finding her own source of brains would save her parents from selling more furniture to pay Unwin and Alder.

  “Just do as he asks, Emma, so that he will go away,” Mrs Knightley whispered.

  Most would not have heard her, but Wycliff’s ears easily snatched the words on the light breeze.

  Miss Knightley pushed the strings of her reticule further up her arm and held out her hands, palms up. She was wearing beige gloves made of a soft hide.

  Wycliff rolled his eyes. Did she honestly think he wanted to examine her gloves? “You must remove your gloves.”

  They blocked the flow of pedestrians and created a fork, with people choosing one side or the other to go around them. The curious cast sharp glances at them, disapproval for the inconvenience to others scored into their brows. Wycliff ignored them. He did not care one whit if he inconvenienced the whole of London.

  Miss Knightley tugged on the fingertips and stripped off the gloves, which she then handed to her mother. She held out her hands, palms up.

  Wycliff inhaled deeply through his nostrils and caught the faint mustiness from the young woman. Dim-witted women were sent to test him. He held a tight rein on his temper. “Turn them over. I wish to see your nails.”

  She rotated her hands, holding them before
her like a child being inspected for cleanliness before she could have dinner. All her nails were filed exceptionally short. Two looked as though they had ripped down into the nail bed and the rest trimmed to match. Her fingertips had the slight blue-grey discolouration that gave away the onset of rot within her body. “You have very short nails. Did you break one recently?”

  He wanted to ask, Perhaps while scooping out a poor man’s brain? But for some reason, he imagined Miss Miles standing by Miss Knightley, shaking her head and reprimanding him for his abrupt questions.

  Miss Knightley lifted her fingers and peered at them. “I am often in our garden. Weeding is very rough on the hands.”

  “Were you not wearing gloves?” He had difficulty imagining one of the Afflicted on her knees gardening. Was there even a need to wear gloves if they could heal wounds to their flesh? Any scrapes or scratches would be gone before they walked inside. Especially if they were well fed.

  “Sometimes I forget.” She snatched her gloves back from her mother and shoved her hands into the leather.

  “Do nails grow back as easily as your flesh heals itself?” If one decided to cut off all their hair, would they awake the next morning to find it had all grown back?

  Miss Knightley smoothed the leather down each finger. “Yes. So long as we continue to feed regularly both hair and nails continued to grow as they have always done. Is that all?”

  Now that he had her captive, there was one more question. “No. What were you doing at The Harriers last night? Do you often watch bare-knuckle boxing?”

  Mrs Knightley let out a startled yelp and one hand clutched at her throat. The woman was rather highly strung and reminded him of a whippet they’d had when he was a child. The dog hadn’t lasted long—it took fright at a loud noise one day and dashed out in front of a carriage.

  “That is none of your business.” For the first time in their short acquaintance, the young woman bit out the words tersely. It appeared that Wycliff had worn away her good manners. Things might get interesting if she succumbed to the same passionate outbursts as Miss Miles occasionally displayed.