by Viola Carr
The Philosopher linked hands behind his back, with a theatrical sigh. “But egad! My wide-eyed wonder lures me astray once again. Shall we proceed? I have a job for you.”
“Job?” she repeated stupidly. Potions, mad science, unorthodox gadgets. He cared nothing for them. Just using it all for his own bizarre power games.
“The man who controls you. Where is he?”
She struggled to think quickly, all too aware that in that department he outclassed her. “What? Who? No one ‘controls’ me—”
“We can begin the unpleasantness whenever you like.” That same impatience, a man weary to the core of explaining himself to lesser men. “The fellow who claims to be your guardian. Where can I find him?”
Her blood spiked cold. “You mean . . . A.R.?”
“Is that what he calls himself? Amusing. But yes, I mean the King of Rats.”
Her mind tumbled, a rock in a bottomless crevasse of denial.
The strange elixir. A.R.’s curious disappearances. The smell of alchemy that always surrounded him. His mysterious jaunts into the Holy Land . . .
“But this King of Rats is a myth.” She mustered her wits at last. Dissemble. Lie. Put him off the scent. “Why on earth would you imagine my humble guardian to be he? What evidence have you?”
“I have my spies. This King and his foul inbred brood cringe in their stinking hole and plot against reason and liberty. I require . . . how does one say it? An ‘inside man.’ Or woman, rather.”
Spies. He meant Lafayette. Surely, the captain had been following her after all . . .
Sudden and fierce loyalty burned in Eliza’s heart. A.R. had done her no evil. He’d supported her all her life. She wouldn’t give him up to this power-twisted genius. Not without good reason.
Such as . . . the fact that A.R. might be a murderer? No one wants a scene . . .
“My guardian always comes to me,” she burst out, improvising. “I don’t know where he lives.”
A sharp smile. “Find out.”
“Why?” she countered swiftly. “You’ve plenty of minions. Get them to do your dirty work.” Minions like Lafayette, who’d betrayed her mercilessly at this horrid man’s bidding. What a gullible fool she’d been.
“In that vile part of town, amid trip wires and poisoned deadfalls? Where the mortality rate of my agents has been uncomfortably high? I think not.” Sir Isaac sat opposite her, crossing his legs and carelessly arranging his coat skirts. Absently, he twined one finger in his hair, a shy young man’s gesture that belied the cunning gleam in his eyes. “Besides, you’re a scientist. Show me your evidence. If your guardian is not the King of Rats? Prove it.”
She faked a laugh. “I’ve better uses for my time, sir. Fairy tales don’t interest me.” But her treacherous blood itched to know the truth, and she suppressed a curse.
“The point yet again escapes you. Allow me to explain.” He poured tea into a pair of china cups, holding the lid on the pot with a scarred fingertip. Unwilled, she recalled Henry Jekyll’s hands, marked with cuts and chemical burns. An experimenter’s hands. “I make the rules here. Not Her Majesty. Not the Prime Minister, nor those witless clowns in the Commons. And I will silence this King of Rats, madam, as I have silenced princes and upstart so-called scientists before him.”
“I’m sure,” she muttered. “Poisoned by sorcerers, indeed. Do that yourself, did you?”
A knowing grin. “A necessary evil. The Prince Consort had the Queen’s ear. Dangerous, but in the end a fool. This King of Rats, I fear, is the first but not the second, so I’m sorry to say he cannot be suffered.”
His damnable arrogance made Eliza bold. She was already in his power. Nothing more to lose. “And who are you to decide who may or may not be suffered, sir? I don’t recall anyone putting you in charge.”
“And at last, we reach the point.” He replaced the teapot and fastidiously wiped his fingers on a napkin. “This is not France, and this King of Rats is certainly no people’s champion. We will have no revolutionary nonsense here—until it’s my revolution. When blood runs in English gutters, madam, it shall belong to bishops and sorcerers and anyone else who dares to defy the truth. My truth. Do you understand?”
She nodded mutely. There seemed little to say.
“Excellent.” The Philosopher dropped in a cube of sugar and stirred. “Now, either you’ll do as I command, and give me this King of Rats, along with his plans, by . . . shall we say, Sunday next?” He tapped his spoon against the cup’s rim and placed it on the tray. “Or you’ll spend your few remaining hours stripped naked in a freezing dungeon before I burn you alive alongside every misbegotten wretch who’s ever had the ill fortune to be your friend.” He offered her a steaming cup and smiled politely. “Tea?”
NEITHER DIABOLICAL NOR DIVINE
THREE HOURS LATER, AND I’M STILL BLOODY ANGRY.
I’m lurking in a doorway’s shadows, peering out at the arc-lamps and gleaming windows of Tottenham Court Road. Waiting for my quarry, and he’s taking his sweet time.
I’m antsy. I can feel that fat greedy moon’s pull, lacing fire through my blood an hour before he even rises. My fingers itch to punch someone, to wrap around my sweet steel sister and jam her deep into some fat aristocratic throat.
Damn that creaking old bastard. I wanted to hurl that scorching cup of tea into his eyes and watch him scream. But Eliza just sipped and sat there, tight and anxious, waiting for it to be over so she could rush home and decide what to do. Turning over options, making plans. Thinking.
Well, screw thinking. Lizzie don’t care about no lecherous old guardian or King of rot-bleeding Rats. She wants to act. And it’s just a pity that even I can’t sneak into the god-rotted Tower. Because if I could, I’d murder that crumbling relic of a scientist in his sleep and piss on his corpse. Put an end to the whole fucking thing with one slice of my blade . . .
Still, part of me wonders if there’s a reason why that mean old bonehead don’t die. A sneaky, bitter reason in a shiny black bottle, some dark aqua vitae that ate away all the nice parts of him and left that.
If in years to come, Eliza will . . . fade. Dissolve, like a weary ghost, to haunt no more. And there’ll be only me.
The back of my neck prickles, a premonition. I poke my head around the doorjamb. There he is. My prey. Lafayette, out of twig once again in the same dirty coat and hat. Curse him for turning us over to his masters, even though Eliza’s done her damnedest to be his friend.
He’ll pay for that. This time, I won’t be weak and girly. This time, he’s mine.
Lafayette glances about in purple twilight. Lamplight shadows his face, pale and damp as if he’s falling with a fever. He tugs his hat brim over his eyes, and then he’s off at a quick clip towards the Euston Road.
I stroll into the street, tossing my cloak over my red skirts, and follow.
Marcellus Finch, see. The crafty old bean’s playing both sides, and when Eliza got home, a telegraph was waiting for her, with the address of Lafayette’s lodgings.
This time, she’d the wit not to fight me. I’m our courage, see, and I’m better at this part—the sneaking-around-in-the-dark part—than she is. A tiny gulp of elixir later, and here I am.
Finch enjoys his funny little games. So I’ll play, this time. I’ll find out what Lafayette’s up to, mark my words. And then, maybe I’ll march back to Seven Dials, winkle Mr. A. Rat-King Esquire from whatever stinking coal-hole he’s skulking in—Rats’ Castle, indeed—and ask him what the golden fuck’s going on.
The street’s thronging with rich folk, strolling in the cool evening, in wide skirts and frilly bonnets and neatly tied cravats. I saunter by, winking at the gentlemen, and the ladies poke their noses in the air and pretend not to see me. They’re all too canny with the fancy whores who screw their husbands up and sideways, naughty French tricks and spankings and wild abandon, when all they get is the pox and a few rigid fumblings in the dark.
My fists quiver. I want to poke their eyes out, watch
them fall and wail and bleed. “You ain’t so special,” I mutter.
This one lady must have heard me, because she shoots me a poisoned glare. Too high and mighty to acknowledge I exist, other than as some dirty object in her way.
“Aye, you.” I bare my teeth, a maniac’s grin. “You ain’t better than me, lady. If you got your legs sliced off and died bleeding in the mud? Your so-called gentleman would just get another, and she’d poke her nose in the air and pretend the whores ain’t there, too.”
She gapes at me, dumb. And I tip my hat to her blustering fancy man and hustle on.
I stroll faster, chasing Lafayette through the crowd. He’s in a hurry, thirty yards or so ahead, and I almost miss him as he ducks down a street and across a gardened square. Past the gloomy broken towers of Trinity Church, where fake beggars mimic frothing fits to earn a penny and revolutionary rabble-rousers yell about freedom and the vote and evolution, and he’s heading into the dark expanse of Regent’s Park.
Damn, he’s in a rush. I hurry after, picking up my skirts. In the park, no one’s around. The tree-lined avenue of Broad Walk is deserted, the sunlight nearly gone. The old, weak gaslights are few and far spread. Glimmering mist licks my boots, creeps under my skirts to lead me astray. In the dark, strange fairy fire dances and my bones zing with warning.
Jesus, the man’s got a death wish. If this place ain’t brimming with footpads and rampsmen and mad-arsed fey killers, I ain’t Lizzie Hyde.
But Lafayette ain’t slowing. He’s practically running now, and every few seconds he glances up at the sky, searching, as if he’s expecting it to crack open and swallow him. Ahead, the tall iron fence of the Zoological Gardens shimmers from the dark, a mist-wreathed mirage.
I pull out my stiletto and hold it in my hand—no need to look like easy game—and take off after him. If I lose him in the dark, it’s all been for naught.
A black shape lurches from the fog, and whoosh! the cosh swings down.
I twirl aside on one heel. The weapon falls harmlessly, and I laugh wildly and stab with all my might. Squelch! My blade finds flesh. Compelled, I stab again. Squick! squock! and I twist and shove and the robber thumps into the ground, gurgling.
The stink rises, dirt and rotgut rum. Is he dead? Bad luck, idiot. You had it coming. No one threatens us. His bald ugly head glistens, his bowler hat fallen off. I jump on it, and kick him for good measure, and run on, blood spraying from my blade. There’s something warm and wet on my face. I wipe it off with my forearm.
Strange, liberating power gleams in my heart, and I laugh.
Ahead, Lafayette’s climbing the fence.
No joke.
He’s scaling the fence into the zoo, leaping upwards like a monkey and swinging himself over the spikes. He drops on the other side into a row of green ferns and disappears into the gloom.
Shit. I run up to the fence and peer in, a vertical bar in each fist. The gap’s too small for me to squeeze through, what with my bosoms the size they are. Eliza might fit. Me? Not a chance. I sheathe my blade and haul myself up. It’s a good ten feet to the top, and my arms ache, the rough metal rips at my palms. My skirts hook on the spikes as I clamber over. Zzzp! Silk rips as I yank it free, and I drop into the damp garden.
Wet ferns brush my face. I giggle. This is fun. Ain’t never been to the zoo.
Clouds scud, bruised bloody with the light of the soon-to-rise moon. I snap on Eliza’s little blue-shaded lamp—her stuff comes in handy sometimes—and peer about in the mist. The foul stink of old straw and shit crawls up my nose. Good. It’ll mask my smell from that uncanny nose of his, though I fancy he’s too distracted tonight to notice me anyway.
Creature scuffles echo from the dark, whines and wordless chattering and the craw-craw-craw of a lonely bird. Something screeches, and running hooves rumble on the dirt. A lion roars. The animals are awakening.
A white antelope goggles at me from behind a fence. Honk! says he, and skips skittishly away.
“Honk to you, too, handsome,” I say gaily. He don’t answer.
I take off up the main path after Lafayette, past a big smelly pond thick with lily pads. A pair of darling little striped horses are charging about in their cage, black eyes rolling in fright. Their hooves kick up mud, splattering it over the walls. They don’t have enough room to be what they are. Tension stings the air, a taste like thunder, and the beasts can sense it. Hair stands up on my arms. Something’s about to break.
Iron clangs, a gate slamming. I run, the purple light swinging crazy from my belt, making the world sway. Gravel crunches under my boots. I can’t lose him now.
The painted sign on this enclosure reads CARNIVORA. I duck inside, panting, along a narrow brick corridor that smells of blood. It’s lined on one side with barred cages, and pairs of gold-lit eyes shine at me from the dark.
The cages are small, only a couple of yards across, floors covered in straw. The beasts prowl to and fro, growling and stretching their shaggy jaws, and something’s groaning, an animal in pain. Memories of Bethlem madhouse break like glass, and I shudder and try to forget. Don’t know how she puts up with that hell. I’ll take lions over lunatics any day.
A shadow lurches at the corridor’s end. I scrabble for my blade, but it ain’t no escaped lion.
It’s Lafayette. Ignoring me, if he’s seen me at all. He’s wrestling like a madman with a cage, rattling at the lock, bang-bong-twang! and at last he yanks the iron-barred door open and jumps inside.
What in bleeding hell is he up to?
I run, torn skirts swishing, past the watchful eyes of prowling monsters, but it’s too late. The cage door clangs shut, and locks, and I skid to a halt with a death grip on the bars and brace myself for ragged screams.
But only Lafayette’s inside.
He huddles in the dirty straw, knees to his chest, shivering like the creeping death. His hands shake, fingers curled white. His face shines bright with fever. Sweat drips from his hair. He’s already hurled his coat aside, and his shirt’s slicked to his body like a wet second skin.
Ain’t that hot in here. Eliza’s the doctor, not me, but Jesus. Whatever powder Finch gave him? It ain’t working.
I tear at the gate, but it’s locked. He’s tossed the key into the corridor, where it glimmers alone on the bricks. What’s his plan for getting that back? I don’t know. But he ain’t inventing this as he goes. He knew he was coming here.
He’s been before.
“What the hell are you at?” I blurt out. I don’t go for the key. Something’s weird’s going on.
Now he sees me. “You shouldn’t be here,” he hisses. “Go away.” Fresh moonlight pours down, dragging sweet sensation from my blood and setting his gaze afire.
“Not until you tell me what’s . . . holy Jesus.” I stare, and the silver-edged night sucks my breath asunder.
Because Captain Lafayette is changing.
His pupils slam wide. A groan forces between his teeth, pure agony. He’s shuddering fit to explode, and muscles bulge and ripple under his wet shirt, more than they’ve any right to. Like rats in a sack, fighting to escape.
“For God’s sake, get away.” No rage in his voice. No hatred.
He’s pleading with me. Begging. He don’t want me to see.
In the next cage, the lions are going nuts, slavering and growling and poising to spring. Likely they got the right of it.
But I can’t leave. I have to see. I need to.
Sinews strain in his neck. His spine arches backwards, an impossible curve. Bones pop and crackle, and he flings his bulging arms outwards and howls for blood and something’s happening to his face. His beard sprouts thick and golden in a matter of seconds. His nose flattens and widens. Wicked teeth split his gums, spearing long and sharp, and blood spills over his chin.
His hands contort, stretching, long fingers with knobbly knuckles. His nails curl three inches long. His knee joints pop backwards with a horrible crack! He tears at his shirt, shredding it, and his body was always l
ean but now it’s stretching, changing, muscles roping tight over a rib cage that narrows and elongates as I watch. His furred ears twitch, and his hair springs long like a lion’s mane, tarnished with silver and gold.
He howls again, and there’s a flurry of straw and torn fabric and then he’s hurling himself against the cage bars, rattling them fit to snap. Silken fur ripples along his back, over his chest, down his legs and arms . . . or, should I say, front legs.
Naked. Inhuman. Magnificent.
I stare open-mouthed like an idiot. Captain Lafayette of the magic-hating Royal is a monster. He’s cursed. At the mercy of this greedy moon, just like us.
Just like me.
It all fits. His sense of smell. The powder from Finch, a prophylactic against a curse. The odd way Lafayette acted last night, when clouds scudded away from the moon . . .
“Well,” says I, after a moment. “This is awkward.”
Laughter tickles me. This is fucking fantastic. I want to flee, scream for help like a girl. I want to stroke that rich golden pelt, howl beside him to the moon.
I want to strike that lock away and set him free.
He hurls himself against the bars again, fur bristling. His hand—paw?—swipes at me through the bars. I jerk back, and those magnificent claws miss my nose by a whisker.
He tumbles into the straw and howls with frustration and blind need.
My fingers itch. What if I did? What if I opened the door?
Would he hurt me? Kill me? Claw me aside without a thought? Or is some shred of human thing still lurking inside, the man who had all the chance he wanted t’other night to kill me—yes, or have me—and walked away?
He—still a “he,” somehow, never “it”—he’s at bay now, crouching, lean muscles a-quiver. Breath rasping, tongue lolling between cruel saber teeth that glisten wet in the moonlight. Golden-lashed eyes, fixed on me . . . and still improbably sky blue.
There’s a look in ’em, rage and hunger for sure, but something else, and with a jolt of ice in my blood, I realize the person inside him is ashamed.
