Tenfold More Wicked

by Viola Carr

  “Of course you do,” he agrees. His hair’s dyed blue-black, covering that improbable, tell-tale crimson. Clipped short, too, instead of bouncing all over the joint like a fey-struck ruffian’s. “There, Miss Hyde, catch your breath, I shan’t kill you just yet. You and I need to talk.”

  “Ain’t got nothing to say to you—Oi!” I jerk like a shit-scared rabbit, ready to run.

  But he’s only holding out a handkerchief. Shaking, I take it. Wipe my face and neck, blot my bloodsoaked neckline. God rot him, I ain’t afraid of much. Not wolf-men, not red-caped assassins.

  “I do apologize for the mess. I’d never leave a lady in so disheveled a state, but the timing was somewhat awkward.” Meticulously, Todd polishes his razor with another cloth. Wrist-flicks the blade into the ivory handle, zing!, and slips the lot into his waistcoat pocket, tidy as you like. He frowns at a gore-specked cuff. “I say. Anyone would imagine me a common footpad.”

  I toss his ruined handkerchief away. My pulse still thrums, a startled bird’s. Yet I long to smile. Eliza longs to smile. “What do you want, Todd? Following me, is you?”

  “Only taking the air, madam, a pleasant midnight jaunt. Fortunate for you that I happened by. One never knows what’s lurking in the dark. Unsavory characters, boorish manners, tragic fashion sense. It’s positively alarming.”

  “Crack-brained weasels like you, you mean.”

  “Now, that’s not nice. I merely offer a gentleman’s assistance.” He plucks my stinger from the mud and offers it to me, handle first. “Did you drop something?”

  I grab for it.

  But he whisks it away, with that indecent scarlet smile that always addles Eliza’s wits. “Weren’t planning to kill me with it, by chance? It’s most undignified. Electrocution, I mean. I’ve endured enough of it in Mr. Fairfax’s revolting excuse for a hospital to know. All that tedious messing about with muscle cramps and soiling myself and blood coming out my nose, and for what? Anyone would think he was trying to drive me mad.”

  He offers the stinger again, and this time I snatches it. But he don’t let go, and suddenly he’s inches away. So close, I can smell him, that horribly lickable scent of roses and murder. “Don’t think I don’t know that’s Eliza’s dress, by the way,” he murmurs. “You look quite peculiar. Kindly don’t wear it again.” And he releases me.

  I back off, eyeballing that narrow escape route between him and the wall. “Last I looked, numbskull, you ain’t in charge of my wardrobe.”

  He lifts regretful hands. “Forgive me. I find it incongruous. The effect is all wrong. You’re much more aesthetic in rufescent shades. Try a cherry, or double-white vermilion? I confess I miss Eliza’s eyes.” He smiles, starry, and damn it if he don’t look like a fool in love. “Her particular shades have no name, you know. They’re poorly approximated by ordinary grays. One must mix ultramarine and ivory black. The proportions are . . .” He licks his lips, and it makes me stare. “Quite astonishing.”

  “Did you mistake me for someone who gives a turd? Because I really must be going—”

  Swiftly, he blocks my path. “But we’ve only just begun.”

  I sidestep. He follows. I sidestep back. He follows again. “Out of my way, nutbag.”

  Todd wrinkles his nose, considering. Shakes his head.

  “Eliza ain’t here, all right? So sorry. Spew your loony love poetry in her ear some other time.”

  “And as much as I’d like to”—a delicately hungry grin—“it’s you I’ve come to see. We need to talk. You’ve been meddling in our affairs, Miss Hyde, and I won’t have it.”

  I edge away. “Don’t know what you’re on about.”

  “But I think you do. There’s no other explanation. She wrote me the most disturbing letter, did you know? I can hardly bear to repeat what it said. I couldn’t believe my eyes, and if I may say so, my eyes are somewhat notorious for attention to detail.” His chin tightens. “Her rejection hurt me, Miss Hyde. Honestly, it did. I can only imagine her coldness to be because of you.”

  “Ha! Hate to spoil your wedding, Romeo, but that was all Eliza. She thinks you’re offing folks to get her attention.” Thinks she can save you, I almost add, and swallow a guffaw. Like hell. “That Zanotti, for one, what stole your painting?”

  A bewildered arch of brows. “Why on earth would she imagine me responsible for that? The newspapers described all manner of bizarre disorder. Savaged hearts, indeed. Most displeasing. A lunatic, I daresay.” He smiles slyly. “Or a cunning fox with a desperate need. Searching for something, I’ll warrant, and not only revenge. I shouldn’t be surprised if all sorts of dirty secrets wash out in that river of blood.”

  “That missing beadle, then. The fat fool what dismissed her from the workhouse.”

  “Ah.” Sadly, he shakes his head. “Mea culpa. An accident, all the same. Shadow lost his temper.”

  “Who the hell’s Shadow?”

  “Hardly a question I’d have expected from you.”

  I can’t help but laugh. “‘’Tweren’t me, I swear! My imaginary friend done it!’ You keep telling yourself that. Own your bleedin’ sins, Todd. Renouncing what you done don’t make it disappear.”

  But doubt pops blisters in my blood. What if it’s true? Is he hiding his own Lizzie, some chortling black-hearted rascal what pops out to dispatch the ugly and ill-mannered while his attention is elsewhere?

  Aye. And it weren’t me what fucked Johnny and got Becky stabbed in the guts neither.

  Todd gives me a puzzled look. “You shan’t distract me with feeble riddles. I must ask that you cease your interference immediately. As a gentleman to a lady, you understand. A matter of good manners.”

  I cock hands on hips. “And if I says ‘go to hell’?”

  “Then I’m afraid I shall have to make you stop, and there’ll be much distasteful nonsense with screaming and sweating and bad smells, not to mention all that blood soaking the carpet. Who’ll clean that up?” He clicks his tongue in disapproval. “No one wants a mess like that. Least of all I.”

  “That’s the shabbiest threat I ever heard. Kill me, and she dies, too. You do realize that, you piss-brained half-wit?”

  Cruel glitter fires his stare. “Your ill manners make my head ache, Miss Hyde. Who said anything about death?”

  I laugh to bolster my courage, but screw me raw, I’ve never longed harder for my stiletto. Stab him in the throat, send him howling back to hell. “Think you frighten me, Odysseus Sharp, Esquire? I could grass on you to the coppers this very night and they’d hang you in a heartbeat.”

  “Would they? What will you tell them?” Todd folds his arms, crosses one ankle before the other. Eyes the henchman’s corpse with distaste. “Beastly fellow. Look at the abominable rat-fur shade of his coat. Deserved to die choking for his fashion sense alone. I fancy Mr. Sharp is quite the hero.”

  “You want gratitude? I don’t owe you a pink spit. And Inspector Griffin would know your pointy mug anywhere.” I almost guffaw. Me, taking a copper’s part. Next I’ll be swearing off gin.

  Todd grimaces. “Ah. You have me there. Dear Harley. I know where he lives, you know,” he adds airily. “That desperately middle-class town house he really can’t afford. I’d visit him—his pretty wife expired, did you hear, it’s such a tear-jerker—but I’m afraid he’s never been very good at listening to what I have to say. Frustrating chap. Unhinged, I should think. I’m sorry to say our next meeting could well turn violent.”

  “Captain Lafayette, then,” I retort. And then I wish I hadn’t.

  A dark, jealous chuckle that makes me cringe. “The Royal Society lapdog? Please. You don’t scare me.”

  “You don’t know me yet.” Christ, am I threatening a thrill killer? With what, a smart-arse smirk?

  “I could say the same, Miss Hyde. Which strikes me as a shame, seeing as Eliza and I . . .” He smiles, enraptured. “Well, there’s only one ending to that story, isn’t there?”

  “I’m disappointed in you, Todd. Thought you had hi
gher concerns.” I sigh. “Fine. You want to bed her, go right ahead. Just warn me out, so I won’t be there when it happens.”

  His mouth twists in faint disgust. “You mistake me, madam. Honestly, do you take me for a common man?”

  And the truth I only suspected until now punches me in the face.

  I’m safe as a rug bunny with this loon. Because it ain’t me he wants to hurt.

  My flesh crawls. Get rid of him, Lizzie. Now. Before he seduces Eliza with his tragic bleeding-heart fakement and slices her apart to bathe in our blood.

  I’m sweating. I’m shaking. My heartbeat’s rattling like a runaway diligence. Deep in my pocket, Eliza’s stinger beckons. Shove it in his ear and shock him to death, before he twigs what I’m at and lunges in for the cut—but I’ll need to get close enough to touch.

  Bloody Christ, I don’t want to. Not his murdering skin, not his hair, not even his clothes, warmed by that vile Todd-flavored fever.

  But I must. Or he’ll kill her, the second he lays hands.

  Or will he dishonor her, despite his high-minded talk? Does he play with his prey, when the fancy takes?

  Jesus, I don’t want to know.

  I smile, sultry-like. “Look, I were hasty. We oughta try to get along.”

  “Are we not? I was so enjoying our chat. One meets so few truly interesting people in my line of work.”

  “This Shadow thing . . . It’s a lonely life, aye?” I toy with my hair. Step over the corpse, closing in. “We ain’t so different. So rare to find a man what understands.”

  Mr. Todd backs away, a glitter-green warning. His fingers twitch, an edgy razor gunslinger’s. “Don’t touch me.”

  Aha! A weakness, no less. Steeling myself, I touch his hand. My pulse skitters. He’s warm, fragrant, terrifyingly human. “Don’t be shy, sweetheart. You might like it—Ow!”

  He grabs a fistful of my hair, and twists. “Don’t be disgusting,” he hisses, holding me at arm’s length. “Do you imagine me such an easy mark? Think your flesh is something I covet?”

  He flings me away, and fastidiously tidies his cuffs. His red mouth is tight. Dismayed, as if he never touched a woman that sordid way, and never wants to, and fears what might happen if he does.

  My palms itch. Jump him while he’s distracted and vulnerable. Shove that stinger into his throat and fry him like a fish . . . but I can’t.

  Eliza won’t let me move.

  Her paralyzing venom oozes into my veins. Stupidly, I long to comfort him. She’s dreaming of his touch, the sting of steel under her chin, and that awful pink remedy makes me weak. It’s as if our places is reversed. She’s the breath on the back of my neck, the ghostly shiver beneath my skin, imploring me, no, please, don’t hurt him . . .

  God rot her. I don’t GET it. Does she want him, is it that simple, the aching thirst of any woman for a man? God knows, we don’t get to choose who lights our fire.

  Or is it a darker, more unspeakable craving? Eliza’s memories addle my senses. I can’t think. Like this, he swindled her into helping him, one stormy evening in his solitary cell at Bethlem. Befuddling her wits with his strange charm, secretly slipping a pin from her hair, the same pin he’ll later use to pick his cuffs and escape. Kill me, she whispers, drenched in wild lightning. And he says, thank you . . .

  My nerves snarl like a cornered beast. Get out of my way, woman. How can I protect us if YOU WON’T LET ME?

  Todd gives me that mad, tragic smile, same as he gave Eliza in that wintry courtroom when he tricked her into letting him live . . . and he beckons me closer. Imperious, just the way she wants it. Clever Eliza, begging at a madman’s whim.

  I edge nearer. Powerless in her grip. An automaton with a broken, bleeding heart.

  But he’s quite calm. “Do you see my difficulty, Miss Hyde? I’m a rational man. But Shadow doesn’t think before he acts. If you attempt to thwart me again, I can’t answer for what might befall you.” His whisper kisses my ear. “And then at least two of the four of us”—he licks his lips, that tiny hypnotic sound—“will be very disappointed.”

  His rosy scent drenches me, a half-remembered nightmare of beauty. I burn to act, flee, kill. But I can’t move.

  I’ve failed her. Failed us both.

  “You’re a monster,” I croak. When what she wants me to say is kill me now. Take me. Show me how you love me.

  Trembling, I close our eyes, and wait for the end.

  In a breath of poison-sweet roses, he’s gone.

  EQUAL AND INDIFFERENT JUSTICE

  IN FOG-STRAINED MORNING SUNSHINE, HIPPOCRATES lay prostrate on Eliza’s desk blotter with his legs in the air. “Be still,” she scolded, waving a screwdriver. “This won’t hurt.”

  Hipp wriggled like an upturned turtle. “Evidence insufficient. Conclusion spurious. Recompute.”

  She blinked gritty eyes. She was stumbling in mind and body, exhausted by Lizzie’s intrigue and her own rose-scented nightmares of Mr. Todd. If you attempt to thwart me again . . .

  Not to mention Lizzie’s palaver with Edward Hyde. Eliza had already scribbled a note to the Philosopher. She hardly dared imagine the response. Hyde was befuddled. Mad. Flirting with catastrophe.

  Did that same disintegration threaten her future, if she couldn’t keep Lizzie under control?

  Carefully, she loosened Hipp’s propulsion spring. WHIRRR! Hipp’s legs jerked, and flopped limp.

  She pried up his brass casing, blowing dust from the clockwork, and squinted through her magnifier. A pair of notched cylinders, his voice recorder. His data store, a stack of tiny crosshatched wafers. His power generator, a kernel of light emitting the faint whiff of burned aether . . .

  Clink! Her tweezers hit an unexpected bump.

  She poked it. The size of a pea, it seemed attached, by a network of fine wires. She pulled harder. Pop! Off it snapped, and bounced onto the blotter. Tiny octopus-like limbs writhed from a silvery metal body. A filament unwrapped itself, turning inquisitively like a snail’s stalked eye. The horrid thing’s wire tentacles flexed, a hungry parasite searching for a host.

  She trapped it under an upturned beaker, wrinkling her nose in distaste. She’d built Hipp. She knew what was meant to be there. She flipped a thicker lens into her magnifier, peering closer . . .

  An hour later, nervy and breathless, she tapped the knocker on Captain Lafayette’s door near Inner Temple Gardens.

  Across the wide boulevard, steam barges putted on the Thames, alongside paddle-driven rafts and bobbing coracles. The dirty fog had thinned, and sunshine jeweled the water, painting golden ribbons along the iron-railed Embankment and the stately granite arches of Waterloo Bridge. The trees lining the bank shed a rich summer-blossom scent.

  She fidgeted on the flower-lined garden path, waiting. Maybe Lafayette wasn’t home. He hadn’t yet responded to her telegram from yesterday. Was he avoiding her, now? She’d all but accused him of betraying her to the Royal. Called him a torturer . . .

  But the thing had to be faced. The issue of his proposal remained to be settled. And she’d left Hipp at home in pieces. As if it weren’t death to a lady’s reputation to call on a gentleman alone. Good God, this was insane. Mortified, she turned to scuttle away.

  “Leaving already?”

  She halted, flushing. In the doorway, Lafayette smiled at her, ingenuous. Coatless, his shirt blinding white. Sun-glare ricocheted off the river to kiss his chestnut hair with gold.

  “Er . . . no. Good morning.” She’d come to apologize for her foolishness, start afresh . . . but some stubborn diamond of fearful caution still glittered in her heart. She despaired. Would she ever get over this? Did it matter? Even Lafayette’s epic patience must have limits.

  He ushered her in, with a swift glance left and right along the street. Searching for ordinary prying eyes? Or Lady Lovelace, that steel-hearted spy?

  The hall was bare, ancient wood panels well oiled. Just a table and mirror. Only recently moved in? No ornaments or pictures. The place felt . . . empty. Sou
lless. Nothing of the man himself.

  He took her cape, and she glanced around, curious. “Don’t you keep anyone?”

  “Not here. I need a place to be alone.”

  She forced a smile. “I hope you don’t mind my dropping by. I’ve a development in the case—”

  “I’ve something to show you. Come.” He offered his hand. As if he hadn’t been listening.

  Swallowing, she took it. He led her to the back stairs, where a weak electric light flickered and buzzed. “After you, Doctor. Dusty, I’m afraid. I haven’t had the chance to clean up.”

  Nonplussed, she peered down into the gloom. “Am I to be interred alive, like poor Fortunato? Do you belong to the secret coven, too? Or is it just your own personal dungeon?”

  He handed her a lit candle. “Don’t despair, I shan’t shackle you to the wall and starve information out of you. At least not this morning.”

  “How comforting.” She descended, brushing away an arc of cobweb, to find a long wooden room where a frosted basement window admitted grudging light. Once a servants’ hall, empty now.

  Except for an iron cage. Six feet square of two-inch bars, bolted to the scratched floor. Twin fat padlocks dangled from bolts as thick as her thumbs.

  “For dogs,” he explained. “I bought this place from ratters.”

  Eliza covered her mouth. The awful thing made her shudder. Dungeons, torture, all the terrible things she’d accused him of. The bars looked unbreakable. But Lafayette’s monster was no ordinary animal. “Oh, Captain. You can’t . . .”

  “I must.” Dark, final. No choice. “Tomorrow night will be the first test. It has to be better than Regent’s Park Zoo. At least I’ll be out of sight.”

  Her own selfishness mocked her, a witch’s cruel laughter. She’d troubled him with such irrational suspicions, when he was preparing to endure this. She faced him. “I owe you an apology.”

  “That isn’t necessary—”

  “I’m afraid it is. You’ve given me no reason not to trust you. And your work is your business.” She twisted her gloved hands. “It’s only that I hate this! I can’t bear not knowing what Lizzie said, or where she’s been. I’m scared she’ll . . . I don’t want her to spoil things.”