His words, whispered in her ear, were as tender as a lover’s. “I ain’t never killed nobody in my life. But cross me again, you’ll be the first.”
He let go.
She rushed forward, but it was already too late.
The giant was gone, his body a blanket of flames.
The Tooth Fairy’s necklace rattled as he departed, bone against bone, its clicking death song a serenade to the devastation he’d left behind.
36
What do you mean it’s gone?” Ava’s expression was unreadable.
“He burned it.” Molly rubbed the raw red mark on her throat.
Everywhere around them were signs of tomorrow’s party. Polished sconces glowed on the walls, wreathed in fresh flowers. Even the portrait of Hades was festive, a garland looped around its ornate frame. Ava pulled a petal from it and slowly crushed the fragile skin between her fingers.
“You have no idea what you’ve done, do you?”
Molly let out a choked sound. “This was the most important night of my life.”
“Important?” Ava laughed. Her face took on the gaunt edges of a starved wolf. “ ‘Important’ is making sure you lock the doors at night. This? This is everything, Molly. Without that body, there’ll be no hospital.”
Molly’s face blazed with shame as her aunt took hold of her shoulder.
But when she spoke, Ava’s voice was soft. Calm. “Do you know how many corpses a hospital produces? And all of them, every single one, would be ours.” Her eyes glowed. “You’d never have to steal a body again.”
“I don’t mind working.” It was true. Molly had dug up grave after grave to get here. She would dig more, do anything, if only it meant she could have one more chance to become a doctor.
Ava yanked Molly down onto her knees beside her, as if they were praying. A pulsing pain throbbed inside Molly’s mouth as her teeth clacked together, biting into her tongue. Her eyes widened in alarm.
“We have to fix this,” Ava said.
Molly swallowed, her mouth filled with the iron taste of blood.
“I’m not asking for me,” Ava said. “I’m asking because it’s the right thing.” Her aunt’s grip tightened. “Imagine. Girls like you able to study at a real hospital. Patients that have actual care, and women presented opportunities to give that care. No other hospital in the nation has that.”
Molly’s heart sped.
“The doctor doesn’t care about your sex, Molly,” Ava whispered. “You know that. He’s let you study with him. He’ll let others. And beyond that, think of all the patients we’ll help. The most brilliant minds, coming together to learn . . .”
Molly wet her lips with her bloody tongue and felt the dry crack of them in response. Her aunt was right. For once, she was in the position to do something bigger than herself. Bigger than any of them.
But that wasn’t what mattered. Not anymore. What did was the fact that Molly was somehow, miraculously, being given another chance to get what she wanted. That there might still be a way to get LaValle his hospital and for Molly to become a doctor.
It was all she had left.
“Help me,” Ava whispered, her face paling. And for a second, Molly thought she saw something else there, something she’d never seen in her aunt’s face before. Fear.
“How?” The word came out choked.
“We need a new specimen, and we need it immediately. Something as grand and unique as the giant.”
Specimen. The word chilled her.
“We won’t have much time.” Ava rose. “You’ll have to do whatever it takes.” Her eyes bored into Molly’s. “And no matter what, you mustn’t let the doctor know what’s happened.”
“No.”
Ava sighed, a gust of relief issuing from her lips. Brushing her skirt, she patted it straight. “Good. We’ll get through this together, Molly. In the end, we will triumph.”
Molly stood shakily, her knees locking against the jarring change in position, the bones tight and unyielding from their hard press against the floor. A thousand thoughts whirled through her mind, a thousand terrible possibilities. She brushed them away, unwilling to let them form.
But her aunt did it for her.
“Molly?” she called from the doorway, chin tilted in a final, commanding stare. And when Ava spoke, any doubt that still existed between them vanished. Her words rushed over Molly’s nerves in a chilling tonic. “If you can’t find a body, make one.”
* * *
She had four hours of night left to her, and Molly used them all.
She scoured each of the city’s graveyards, bringing enough money to bribe the groundskeepers a hundred times over. Eagerly, they showed her bodies—some worth a goodly amount of money in their own right—but there was nothing to compete with the giant.
And even as she searched, the Tooth Fairy’s words wormed their way into her brain.
I ain’t never killed nobody in my life . . .
She was beginning to feel horribly certain that the Knifeman had never been caught.
The night grew cold, not with temperature but with the hopelessness of it all, and despite herself, Molly could not stop wishing Tom was beside her. Or someone, anyone, to help her on this katabasis into the double hell within herself and the city’s underbelly.
A few birds had already begun their morning songs as she made her way to her last, desperate stop—the First Street Home for Wayward Women. It was the very same place the Red Carousel girls said they came to collect free meals on a Sunday.
A small girl no older than foulmouthed Kate opened the door.
“I need a girl,” Molly said, eyeing the urchin up and down. No doubt the poor thing would end up earning her living as the older girls behind these walls did, if she hadn’t already.
The child sneered, the adult expression transforming her plump, innocent face. “It’s why they come here, so nobody can buy ’em no more.”
“You misunderstand.” The child’s dress was too tight, and the dirty smell of unwashed body rose from her. In a few years’ times, she’d be in the streets or dead.
Molly pulled Ma’s coat more tightly around her, as if for protection against these truths. “I need a special girl—a dead one. I’ll buy her from you.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a half-dollar.
The child’s hand reached hungrily for it, but Molly yanked it away. “Do you or don’t you have any bodies? Good ones.”
Hand on hip, the girl considered. “Ain’t never seen a lady resurrectionist before.”
“It’s your lucky day, then.”
This brought a small smile to the girl’s lip, and finally she ushered Molly inside.
Like most places Molly had been to that housed the poor on the city’s dime, this one was cramped and ill-smelling. What little light there was let off the stink of cheap tallow, the animal fat burning in hot spurts.
Small rooms dotted either side of the hall, but it was to a storage closet that the girl led her.
Opening the door, she stepped aside to reveal her grim treasure.
Tucked neatly against the dustpans and brooms was a corpse, already stiffened. The body had been left standing, its neck cricked at an odd angle.
“May I look?”
The girl considered, then nodded. “I’ll be down at the end of the hall,” she said. “Come get me when you’re done.” She handed Molly her lantern.
Inch by inch, Molly examined the body. She used not just the eyes of a grave robber but that of a doctor, trying to find anything special that might make this dead girl of interest to a collector of oddities. She knew it was probably hopeless—what she needed was a miracle.
But pushing up one of the body’s sleeves, Molly felt her heart begin to beat faster. Black-and-white spirals laced the arm, and in the dark Molly mistook them for pictures—tattoos, like Ginny’s.
Then her eyes adjusted, and Molly saw the markings for what they were. She raised the sleeve farther up the dead woman’s arm and revealed uncountable bruises in various stages of healing.
She was just another woman taken up and spit back out by the city.
Molly shut the closet door and made her way back to the child.
“What did she die of?”
The girl must have seen something in Molly’s eyes that told her the deal was off, because she grew surly.
“What do you care?”
Uncupping her hand, Molly held out the shiny coin.
“You want her, then?”
“No. But the money is yours. For your trouble.”
The girl snatched the coin away, her grubby hand scratching against Molly’s palm as swiftly as a bird pecking up the last crumb of forgotten bread on a city street. “Just a cold,” she said. “Tried to see a doctor, but she didn’t have no money. Couldn’t breathe at the end.”
A cold turned into pneumonia, probably, Molly thought. A simple act of nature that bloomed to destruction because of poverty.
Back outside, dawn was already coming. A few early risers roamed the streets, and a man pushing an apple cart gave her an odd look as Molly removed her cap and shook her hair free. She didn’t care. What others thought of her now mattered as little as the sun when it shone on the other side of the earth.
On the ride back, the thought that had been a seed began to sprout, its shoots pushing up from the ugly places Molly had tried to erase.
Once home, she did not go inside, but instead made her way around back, to the church.
James stood outside, unlocking it for the day. When he saw her, he raised his eyebrows. “What are you doing here so early?”
“Let me in,” she said, pushing past him on the doorstep. “And don’t follow. What I’m going to do, I want to do alone.”
37
In the safety of her bedroom, Molly carefully emptied her coat pocket of the small object she’d taken from the church. Pulling the trousers and peasant shirt from her body, she collapsed naked into bed.
She needed to sleep. It was the only way she could do what she had to do tonight.
And in sleep, the dreams came, dancing around her secret.
She woke hours later to the rattling of the dinner tray. Outside, the light was already shifting, moving lower in the sky.
“You’ll want to eat something.” Maeve lifted the silver lid off a steaming plate of mashed vegetables and a tureen of milky soup. “It’s a common mistake young girls make, forgetting to eat before a big party and then letting the champagne go to their heads.”
“I don’t plan on drinking.”
“Even so, you might like a little of the soup.” Maeve didn’t move away until Molly was actually out of bed and seated at the makeshift dinner table.
Finished, she called for Maeve to draw the bath. After over a month of living with Ava, Molly could give the commands without hesitation. She began to prepare herself in the finery of a lady as a soldier might for battle.
When the water lost its heat, Maeve helped her out. A special oil of primrose and sandalwood sat in a small glass bottle by the fire, and the maid rubbed the heady scent into every inch of Molly’s skin and hair as she dried by the flames.
Wrapping her mistress in the sumptuous silk of a dressing robe, the maid began arranging her hair. Ava, it seemed, had specified a new style for the party, and Maeve’s sweet face contorted with concentration as she struggled to get the twists and pins just right.
Finished, she held out the pearl-backed mirror for examination, and Molly couldn’t hide her shock. The curling mess had been tamed into a magnificent fiery knot. Rather than following the style of the day that swooped over each ear, Maeve had parted Molly’s hair on the side and then slipped a low, thick braid around her part, perfectly pinning it in a tight chignon at the back of her neck, similar to Ava’s. The result highlighted the angles of her face instead of hiding them. It looked like a magician had been at work, and the illusion only heightened as Maeve slipped the specially ordered ball gown over Molly’s head.
The dress was made of a pale-green silk, so light as to appear almost white. Its cool starkness called to mind arctic skies and frozen oceans. The silk dipped into a low V on her chest and was accentuated about her waist with a thin velvet belt. Below this, yards of crinoline tipped with gauzy organza exploded into a layered skirt that looked like the top of an intricately frosted cake.
She was certain Ginny had made it, her former friend’s clever fingers molding the fabric to suit Molly exactly.
Maeve finished the illusion by dotting the smallest bit of crushed apple-red rouge on Molly’s cheeks and lips. “You look beautiful,” she said, unable to hide her surprise.
Perhaps it was true. Molly didn’t care.
She studied her palm, running a finger up the scar.
As soon as Maeve left the room, she poured a glass of port from a slim decanter that had come with her dinner, hands shaking. But the liquor’s heat did little to warm the icy sluice of dread gushing through her veins.
* * *
There was no question of driving the body wagon—not in this dress. Molly ordered her aunt’s carriage prepared and waited.
A short hour later, she stood outside the Red Carousel. This time, Ginny was not there to meet her.
Molly heaved a sigh of relief when Kate answered instead, her thin face peering suspiciously through the cracked door. “We don’t open for another hour.”
The sight was so similar to last night’s scene at the wayward women’s house that Molly flinched, wondering if she’d ever left at all. How many young girls did this city hold? And how soon would she find their bodies left like scraps of paper from a party’s trash, scattered about its graveyards?
I ain’t never killed nobody in my life . . .
If the Tooth Fairy’s claim was true, then the real Knifeman was still out there. Still planning to kill more women and girls on society’s outskirts, just like the one in front of her.
“Let me in, please.”
“Come slumming it?” Kate tried for her usual flippant tone but turned shy as she took in Molly’s hair and dress. “Don’t think it’s the best idea. Ginny don’t want to see you.”
“I’m not here for her,” Molly said. “I want to see the Duchess.”
Confusion clouded Kate’s face.
“Please. I know she’s sick. I’ve brought her some medicine.”
Frowning, Kate stepped aside. “You give her the medicine, and then you get out.” She eyed Molly’s dress with contempt. “Ain’t no place here for you anymore.”
The Duchess answered the door herself. “What a lovely surprise! Would you like some tea?”
Molly had to stop herself from gasping—the woman looked terrible.
The Duchess’s eyes were a dull copper, her frame so small and shriveled she looked like she might break up and blow away. The entire room smelled of death.
“Let’s just sit,” Molly said.
The Duchess nodded. Picking her steps across the floor like a broken bird, she made her way over to the ratty velvet chair and sank into its nest. With a sigh, she pulled the blankets around herself like a mummy. “I know why you’re here.”
Molly startled. “You do?”
The Duchess’s beard suggested a masculine sex. But a surgeon’s knife would not be fooled.
Molly reached into her pocket. The cold metal of the syringe she’d taken from the church burned as she wrapped her fingers around it.
“I scared you, didn’t I?” the Duchess said.
Molly stilled. “No.”
“Course I did. All that talk about how people liked to hurt each other.”
Molly clutched the needle tighter in her hand. “You were right. People like to use others.”
“Oh, child.” The Duchess winced. “No. Everyone has their own pain is all, especially the ones who give it.”
She coughed, setting off a visible rattle near her collarbone. Her skin was so thin that Molly imagined she could lay a finger on it and rub it away, like the powder on a moth’s wing.
The Duchess’s eyes fluttered closed, and Molly saw a pale-pink trickle at the corner of her lips. The old woman raised a filthy handkerchief to wipe away the blood.
Now. While her eyes are closed.
It would be over in an instant. She needed only to lift the needle and push down on the plunger to release the lethal mixture of chloroform and ether into the Duchess’s heart.
Silently, she moved closer.
But suddenly the Duchess’s eyes sprang open, and this time they were completely clear. “The pain is just part of it, girl. It’s a gift, our lives. They’re over far too—” The coughing took her again, and her eyes fluttered back closed.
In Molly’s hand, the needle gleamed its deadly glow—there was no hiding it now.
A gift.
These were not the same words of the woman who’d only a week ago begged for death.
The syringe hovered in the air between them, wet with the faintest pearl of liquid, trembling on its end.
It would be a murder of mercy, this. Nothing more. She could not fail again.
A soft snore issued from the chair as the Duchess’s head fell to her chest.
Now. She needed to do it now.
Instead, Molly found the needle in her hand floating back to her side.
She stood, legs trembling, and tucked the blankets around the ancient body. Bending, she kissed the fragile skin of the old lady’s forehead, her hand tracing the lines across it as gently as she would handle an egg.
Letting herself out into the hallway, Molly found only more silence.
Shaking, she moved quietly down the hall to Ginny’s door and paused.
“She’s not in.”
Hans appeared as stealthily as a shadow behind her, a freshly steamed mug of coffee in his hand.
The Corpse Queen Page 27