The Business of Blood

by Byrne, Kerrigan

  Even as the morning turned from grey to silver, his eyes became impossibly darker. Raptor-like in their intense analysis of my reaction to his tale.

  “My village was slaughtered while I was away with a hunting party. All of us hunters became braves upon returning. We painted our faces with the ashes of our loved ones and slipped into the army camp at night.” His lashes fluttered with inconceivable memories. “We did things to them that even your Jack the Ripper has not yet done.”

  Every hair on my body lifted painfully as I digested his words.

  Not yet. There was no telling what my Jack the Ripper might do.

  Was he my Jack the Ripper? My personal crusade? Or did Mr. Night Horse mean the word in a broader sense?

  Fiona’s Jack the Ripper.

  London’s Jack the Ripper.

  England’s Jack the Ripper.

  The symptom—the personification—of our sensational inhumanity toward women.

  A particular kind of woman.

  “I survived that night in a very similar way that you survived this one,” he continued. “Wounded. Alone. But alive. You asked if I sought sanctuary with another tribe…” He remained silent from one side of Eaton Square Gardens to the other. I let him gather his words. His thoughts.

  “I became a killer,” he revealed in that neutral way of his. “I began to delight in spilling blood. And did not want to visit that on my people.”

  My brows drew together. “I see you have no trouble visiting it on mine. Not only do you delight in it, you profit from the spilling of their blood.”

  He shrugged and smirked. “These are not truly your people, are they? You are almost as much an outsider as I am.”

  “No, I suppose they are not my people,” I admitted, as much to myself as to him. When I had previously referred to my people, I’d theoretically meant the fair-skinned people of the civilized west. In my subconscious, I considered myself a part of them. Apart from him. His dark-skinned people. But…I was certainly not English. How strange, that in one category I might be considered one of them. And in another, I was more like him: a clannish pagan ruled by Christian imperialist invaders.

  Something to ponder…

  “This place,” He gestured out the window toward the buildings of brick blocking our view of the sky. “This machine of steel and stone and light and money, did to your people what it is doing to mine, only much longer ago.”

  I nodded. Wondering if I was a traitor for being here in London. For loving this glittering, grimy city just as ardently as I had my native Gaelic land.

  “We—my people—are still at war,” I told him. “With ourselves. And with them.” I thrust my chin toward the window. A gesture to encompass all the empire. “The battles are just quieter now. Fewer cannons and more rhetoric. Our battlefields are our neighborhoods, and their warfare is as economic as it ever was violent.”

  He leveled me with a meaningful look. “And yet you live among your enemies and profit from the spilling of their blood.”

  The way he gave my words back to me stole every thought from my head, and every remonstration from my tongue.

  The knowledge of this lifted a corner of his mouth. “We are not so different. Fiona of the Bear Clan.”

  Unsettled. Displeased. I muttered, “I wish that was not so.”

  “There is a charming saying you English have. If wishes were horses…”

  “Then beggars would ride.”

  “We will always be beggars, you and I.” A somber note washed away all traces of amusement from his face. “Wishing the past was different. Think of who is gone. Hating who took them from us. Dreaming of vengeance.”

  “What do you know of my dreams?” Curling my hands into fists, I wrapped my arms tightly around myself, hoping to create a shield against his distressing perceptivity.

  “Only that you whisper Mary’s name when you sleep. And his. Other people call him the Ripper. But to you, in your sleep, he is Jack. He is a man, not a monster.”

  “He is both,” I murmured.

  He nodded once. I’d seemingly pleased him again. “The only monster is man.”

  That Aramis Night Horse knew something I didn’t know about myself; that he’d watched me sleep, dreaming of Mary as he conveyed me from Crosspoint Alley, was an intimacy I couldn’t face. Not tonight when I shook from exhaustion.

  “What were your people like?” I asked the painful question in a gentle voice.

  He peered at me oddly. “It is hard to describe a whole people. There are good ones and bad. Weak and strong. Beautiful and…” He slid me a level look. “Monstrous.”

  “Of course.” What a silly thing to ask.

  “My people laughed.”

  It was the last thing I expected him to say. The way his gaze softened as he stared into the past, transfixed me utterly.

  For an ephemeral moment, a mélange of emotive manifestations tightened the smooth skin over sharp, high cheekbones. “We hunted and fought and feasted and fucked. But, mostly, we laughed. And we danced.”

  I could scarce believe it. Here I sat, reminiscing with an assassin. Finding common ground. Sharing stories of loss. I could not decide if this boded well or ill for me.

  “The Mahoneys were jolly, as well.” I found myself recalling. “We'd gather around a fire with fiddles, flutes, and drums. And we'd drink and dance until our feet ached and screamed at us to stop. I think they could hear us laughing in Scotland, could mark the sounds of our shoes on the ground.” My lips melted into a smile, and suddenly his gaze was more alert as he searched my face.

  Maybe this was a memory we shared. Bonfires warming the cheeks of those now long gone. Animal skins stretched over frames of wood, driving hearts and feet to fly in tandem. Flute melodies lifting the spirits. The poetry of ancient songs stirring our souls, taught to us by our elders.

  The hedonistic worship of the night.

  Maybe this was something all clans, all tribes, all people once did. Something our souls still ached to do.

  “We, neither of us, laugh much anymore,” he predicted.

  “No, Mr. Night Horse,” I whispered tremulously. “In that, you and I are very much alike.”

  It impressed me how still he sat. He didn’t fidget or smoke or examine parts of himself or his surroundings. There was no folding or unfolding of arms. No touching his hair or adjusting his clothing.

  Also, he stared at me for an uncomfortably long time until I realized why looking at someone without interruption or respite was considered so rude. After a moment, layers of yourself began to peel away beneath the unrelenting examination. I’d never known how distressing that could feel until just then.

  “You see too much death, Fiona,” he observed.

  I huffed at him, pulling a cloak of indignation around my shoulders to warm the chill beget by loss. “That's rich, coming from the likes of you.” I’d grown bolder in his company, in our candid exchange.

  “Killing. It is an action on both the part of the killer and the victim. A passing, or a journey. A transition from being here to not being here. Death is a quiet thing. A lonely thing. It is not so much for me to bear. It is not so hard for me to do.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Those are my moments, Fiona.”

  I wished he’d stop saying my name like that. So familiar. Almost…tender.

  “Your moments are after death. In dealing with the offal that is left behind. The anguish. Or the satisfaction. The vindication. The damnation. The noises of grief, and things that are wet. The smell of fear and blood and shit. The sight of who is left behind, not just the bodies but also the beloveds. Those things are heavy.” As was the hand he rested on my shoulder. “They weigh on you. If you are not careful, they might...shackle your spirit to this world when it is your time.”

  Did the Blade worry for my soul? Like Aidan did? “Are you saying you believe in ghosts?” If he did, how did he feel about creating more than a few of them?

  He gave a non-committal shrug, his lethal hand
sliding down my arm until it found the beads still cupped in my lap. Lifting one, he examined it in the gathering light. “I believe the dead haunt us, one way or another.” He leaned forward, eyes glinting, and his ponderous mouth softer than I’d ever seen it.

  For a moment, I feared he meant to touch me. To kiss me or some such ridiculous thing. Instead, he gripped the handle of the door and swung it open, revealing the familiar, tidy, red-brick row houses of Tite Street.

  To my astonishment, he caught my jaw with his fingers and lifted my neck, though whether to inspect the Ripper’s handiwork or the Hammer’s, I could only guess.

  “Be careful in the dark,” he cautioned. “You’ve drawn the attention of a killer.”

  I didn’t breathe again until he released me.

  He pulled the shadows back around him like a mantle, settling his shoulders against the crimson velvet seat of the coach like a king would his throne.

  “Good evening, Mr. Night Horse,” I muttered, remembering my manners before I stepped down onto the walk.

  “Good morning, Miss Mahoney.”

  The shadows were, indeed, retracting down the bricks of my home, the sunlight burning away the so-called dangers of the dark.

  As the driver snapped the reins across the broad rumps of his team, galvanizing them to trot away, an important query leapt onto my tongue. I took several futile steps toward the carriage, my hand out as though an invisible string could pull it back to me.

  To which killer did Mr. Night Horse refer to in his warning? The Hammer? The Ripper?

  Or himself?

  8

  “Here’s what’s going to happen next.” The voice in my ear reeked of wicked suggestion, almost as much as the man it belonged to reeked of equal parts Irish inebriation and iniquity.

  “We two will part ways for the abbreviated time it takes to walk in our front doors, cast off the filth of the night, and then meet in the garden for tea. Whereupon you, my darling, are going to confess to me in precise and comprehensive detail why you’ve been dropped at your stoop at dawn sans a blouse beneath that blood-stained pelisse like a common tart. And who you spent the night with.”

  I turned to the one man who never failed to bring a genuine smile to my soul. One whom I’d met on innumerable occasions such as this. Both of us staggering home at all hours and exchanging gruesome gossip until we’d settled enough to sleep.

  “Jealous?” I taunted.

  “Obviously.” He held his gloves rather than wore them. The limp, expensive accoutrement draped lackadaisically over his palm. In his other hand, he clutched a gaudy walking stick, the bejeweled handle of which he touched to his forehead in greeting. “Except for the bits with the blood.”

  Everything about him was a little too long. His face, his limbs, his hair. And yet, with charisma and wit as flawless as his porcelain skin, he was perhaps the loveliest man of my acquaintance.

  “Pray, how can you tell I don’t have a blouse on?” I inspected my own pelisse, modestly buttoned beneath my throat, barely concealing the wound above my clavicle.

  “Because I am a master of observation. And you, dear Fiona, are a woman of discrete indulgences. I’ve noted it is what you wear beneath your elegant dark frocks that makes you an intriguing character. You’ve always a bit of silk ribbon and expensive lace at your throat. Or vibrant combs in your hair.”

  The series of flamboyant gestures whilst he spoke never ceased to mesmerize me.

  “Why dress up for corpses? I used to wonder.” He tapped his chin dramatically. “Then I realized, a woman does not accessorize unless it matches something. Your unmentionables, I’d imagine.” He swirled a finger in the direction of my more unmentionable parts. “You delight in scandalizing yourself rather than other people. Of holding your naughty secrets close to the skin, as it were.” He eyed my black garb as though he could see through it to the butter-gold corset and garters beneath, beribboned with pale green bows and little silk rosebuds.

  Both the Hammer and the Blade had seen everything above the waistband of my skirt. Even those scoundrels had had the discretion not to remark upon my intimate attire.

  Well, that was Oscar Wilde for you.

  Blushing furiously, I pushed the playful playwright toward the stoop next to mine. His entire suit was plush, a rich and extremely velvet trimmed with burgundy silk which matched his cravat. His long cloak must have cost the blood of several minks.

  “I’ll thank you not to mention my unmentionables on the street, you cad!”

  “Very well.” He allowed himself to be propelled with his usual conviviality. “Let’s discuss them in the garden in a quarter-hour.”

  “That’s not enough time to dress and make decent tea.”

  “Half-past, then.”

  Releasing him to stumble up his own steps, I checked the watch I kept on the end of a very delicate chain.

  If I planned to attend Mr. Sawyer’s autopsy by eight o’clock, then I’d missed my window for sleep. “Better make it coffee, I’m dead on my feet.”

  “Níl luibh ná leigheas in aghaidh an bháis.” He yawned half of this in our native tongue and disappeared inside.

  I shuddered as I mounted my own stairs, acknowledging the prophetic veracity of his words.

  There’s no remedy for death.

  Maybe not, but coffee came close.

  Somewhat refreshed by a cold wash and fresh clothing, I arrived a little late in my cheerful back garden, unhinging the latch so Oscar could let himself in. Hollyhocks, lobelia, and violas lent a perfect fragrance to our cherished—if ill-timed—meals.

  An eerie silence settled about me. It was as though all the ambient sounds of the bustling morning had been smothered by an intruder. No larks called, no doves cooed in the eaves. The air became thick and still. Expectant.

  I again felt that gaze upon me. The one that seemed to reach through the layers of my clothing—and perhaps even deeper, still. Through the layers of my skin.

  The dread I felt was not an abnormal sensation for a woman who more or less lived alone. Especially at night. But I’d never felt it so intensely, and never in the middle of a sunlit morning.

  I turned to inspect the fences, crawling with ivy, and the thick hedges providing my little oasis of privacy in such a crowded city.

  Could someone conceal themselves in the shadows beyond? Could they be watching me, even now?

  Not without alerting my neighbors, surely.

  But I didn’t know that, did I? The hedges were thick enough to—

  The gate banged shut behind me, and I nearly leapt out of my skin.

  “What are you looking at?” Oscar squinted toward the hedgerows hiding the wrought iron fence that separated my garden from the one adjacent. He looked fresh as a spring daisy in a cream linen morning suit with a matching brimmed hat and carried with him a tray of sumptuous dark coffee and fresh scones.

  “Nothing,” I said, rather too brightly. “A shadow caught my eye.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me, you are a woman of the shadows. Of course, they appeal to you.”

  I couldn’t think of a reply to that, so I accepted a linen and draped it across my lap as he arranged our repast.

  We preferred to sit in my garden, as Aunt Nola tended to the flora out here as carefully as she did her own neuroses.

  “I’ll dish the scones,” he offered, “whilst you dish the dirt.”

  I measured my words with the concise extents of an alchemist. One did not simply blurt to a well-connected writer that they had met Jack the Ripper in a dark alley unless one wanted to read the story in the papers the next morning. Not that I worried dear Oscar would write the article himself, but I was under no illusion that I was the only confidant with whom he shared gossip.

  What was it the Hammer had quoted? Two people could keep a secret if one of them was dead.

  It struck me then that I wasn’t exactly certain how dangerous my secrets were…to either of us. But Oscar was privy to almost everything about my past, and as far
as I knew, he hadn’t even whispered of it.

  He had secrets of his own.

  “I’ll tell you mine, if you tell me yours.” I borrowed time with banter, one of Oscar’s favorite activities. “Just where were you reveling last night dressed in such sumptuous garb?”

  “The Savoy, darling, where else? I’m tinkering with an idea for a play. It has everything. Obsession, lust, slaughter, you know, all the best parts of the good book.”

  “What’s this play called?” I queried, noting that the whites of his eyes were stained a dull pink.

  “Salome.” He spread his fingers before him as he revealed the name. “She’s the perfect jezebel, isn’t she?”

  I used a linen to remove a smudge from my spectacles. “Wasn’t Salome a virgin?”

  “Exactly!”

  I replaced the spectacles to peer at him curiously. “I don’t follow.”

  “She danced for Herod Antipas, made him want her. Made everyone want her. He, in turn, offered her whatever her heart desired. Half of his kingdom.”

  “Right, I know that bit, I’ve read the Bible.” I made a gesture for him to err on the side of brevity.

  “Though she’s a virgin, she used sex and treachery to bring about the macabre execution of John the Baptist,” he explained solicitously. “She is both virgin and whore.” He used his left hand to weigh the virgin, and the right hand, the whore.

  We are all of us whores…

  “She sold a dance for a death,” I whispered.

  “And what a bargain.” He waggled expressive brows at me.

  “They’ll never allow it on a London stage in your lifetime,” I predicted, as biblical characters were illegal to portray.

  “I’ll have to write it in Paris, apparently. This city is growing too cold to stay the winter.”

  I would have believed his insouciance had he met my eyes before producing a cigarette on the end of an elegant ivory holder along with a book of matches.

  “Does Constance very much mind that you enjoy the lavish comforts of the Savoy while she remains at home?” I’d noticed of late, a particular distance between the playwright and his perfectly lovely wife. Speculation abounded throughout our bohemian district as to the state of Oscar’s affairs.