Tenfold More Wicked

by Viola Carr

  But then I let go. I like it, my blood seeping into those tiny golden claws. It reminds me how she loathes me. How it hurt me when she said whore. How every time Remy favors her with that besotted smile, a piece of my heart rots bitter black.

  Well, fuck her. Now his pretty jewel’s mine. Ha ha!

  A cab clip-clops by, a black one with a real horse. I yell for it, but the fat driver makes out he’s deaf. I spit him a curse, and run on. My boots slip on fog-slick cobbles. By the time I reach Russell Square, I’m drenched in sweat, my lungs aching with rusty-bladed fire. ELIZA JEKYLL M.D., says her shingle. I spit at it, plop! Not for much longer, sister.

  Catching my breath, I burst in.

  Clunk! Smack-bang into someone. I stumble into the hall stand. A vase smashes, the silver mail tray clangs to the floor.

  Mrs. Poole.

  I goggle at her. She goggles back. My knotted hair, my drab gray skirts. Eliza’s skirts. Shit. “Well,” says I, “this is awkward.”

  My fingers twitch, ready for anything. Will she attack me? Scream? Run into the street yelling “thief”?

  The old lady opens her mouth, and I clock her skull with my elbow. Boink! She wilts, and I lower her softly to the floor. Sorry, old thing, but I’ve no time for your idiot questions.

  I run upstairs. Eliza’s private study shimmers in darkness. The mantel clock ticks, counting down the seconds until Mr. Todd slits another throat. Until the Pentacle Killer carves up another victim. Until Becky’s red-caped murderer hunts me out and sews my skin into shoes.

  Until Eliza fights her way back.

  Not a moment to waste.

  The heavy drapes lie parted. Dust skates along the moonbeams, putting me in mind of long ago, when Eliza would creep down at midnight, wrapped in pearls and her best golden silk, to wait for Mr. Hyde. His rough-sweet voice behind the curtain, his monstrous shadow on the wall.

  Such romantic notions she had. That her mysterious guardian were an odd sort of gentleman, tender-hearted beneath that gnarled skin. A mentor, a friend. Even a lover.

  Laughter hooks my belly. Mr. Hyde turned out to be a maniac, lord of a fucked-up fairy-lit empire as sick and corrupted as the one up top. Cruel, hunchbacked, spoiled by sin . . . and her father, what’s more, her real father, not the nice safe lie she’d grown up with, and how’d you like them apples?

  But guilt stings. She can’t never make friends. Not for her the whispered confidences, secrets shared. Eliza’s lonely because of me.

  Well, fuck her. I’m supposed to be her special friend, and she spat it back in my face like I’m nothing.

  On my finger, that ring tightens and vibrates, a living reminder of affection that’s hers if she dares. But does she really want Remy? Or does she just want to be like him, fearless in the face of his curse, courage untarnished by despair?

  That old jealousy boils in my guts, searing away the last drop of sympathy.

  Sorry, Eliza. You had your chance. Now you have to go, or your precious Mr. Todd will kill us all.

  I fumble beneath the sofa cushions, and yank out Moriarty Quick’s brew.

  I pop the cork. Squelch! A horrid dead-slug odor wafts out. God, it don’t half stink. I’ve swallowed some foul things in my time, elixir and rotgut gin and whatever else, but this . . .

  In my head, Eliza screams, a distant flare of terror. Lizzie, I’m begging you, don’t do this!

  It’s for your own good, my love. Cruel to be kind. Mayhap I’ll burn in hell for this, but that’s all right. Likely, I belong there.

  I pinch my nose, and tip the silvery goop into my mouth.

  It hits my stomach, gritty and disgusting. My eyes pour. I retch, belly cramping as if I’ve got the bloody flux. It’s like drinking cold shit. But I clamp my teeth, and swallow until it’s gone.

  All of it, to the last slimy dribble.

  And that knot that’s twisted my guts all my life . . . loosens. Unravels. Dissolves, like a nagging ghost at dawn.

  THE END OF A NIGHTMARE

  A GRIN SPLITS MY FACE. MY LIMBS WRITHE, FLINGING away their broken shackles, and evil-bright starlight sparkles in my blood. I’m floating, my feet have sprouted invisible wings, and my chest swells as if I’ve cracked off a steel-boned straitjacket.

  I can do anything. Feel anything. Hate, lust, hunger and envy, dishonesty and glee and pointless cruelty. No one to tell me no. No prim Eliza to whisper calm down, think things through, don’t be so goddamned angry. She’s gone for good.

  Rowdy mirth assails me. A-ha-ha-harr! Keep it in, Lizzie, this is serious! I shout, wave my arms, whirl like a blue-assed wasp. Blunder into the desk, knocking everything to the floor. Specimen jars shatter, and ink spills from broken wells.

  I slam my elbow into the glass-fronted bookshelf. Crunch! Blood splashes my sleeve. Sweet sensation, pain or pleasure. I rip a book in half, hurl torn pages skywards like autumn leaves. Treatise on Dissociative States and Disorders of the Nervous Mind. What bollocks. I grab a pen, scrawl a dirty drawing in the margin of what’s left, and toss it away.

  But unslakable thirst claws my guts, God rot it, I burn to consume. Stuff my belly to bursting, fill me up with pleasure and delight and all the things I oughtn’t have.

  I grab her carafe from the wine table—why’s she even got this? she never drinks—and chug. Claret sloshes down my chin, boils my stomach in a heady cocktail of marvelous. I roar, and hurl the empty carafe away. More. MORE. I can fly, God rot it. My chains are broken. I’m FREE.

  My mind reels, euphoric. How long will Quick’s potion last? Temporary, said he. Minutes, an hour, all night? Gotta get a plan.

  Hmm. I could scour the streets for Becky’s killer—aye, the hook-nosed one with the face—and make sure he can’t trouble me no more. Moriarty Quick, too, that ill-begotten Irish worm . . .

  Tempting. But no. Them two can wait. I believe I’ll hunt me a gallant blue-eyed wolf-man, and take what I want. And if his gallant fucking sensibilities blind him to what’s best for us? Why, to hell with reason. If I can’t have him, sweet Eliza, I’ll make damn sure you can’t neither.

  I’ll make sure no one can.

  But first, I’m plotting a darker, more delicious murder. Aye, most certainly I am.

  I skip up to the bedroom, yank on the sconce. Creeak! My wardrobe beckons, stuffed with billowing red fabric. I wriggle into lush satin skirts the color of that claret. She’s a little tight-laced—oof! suck ’em in—but I don’t mind. This occasion’s worth tarting up for.

  Harlot, am I? We’ll see about that. Only my best to meet my Prince Charming. Ha ha!

  I tie my jet choker, clip my mahogany curls up under a black top hat. I yank our ring off and sling it on a neck chain. I want it with me, when I steal Remy from her.

  I glower into the mirror, where her ghost no longer lingers in my eyes. Save yourself from me, will you? Keep him to yourself? Shouldn’t have said them things about me, Eliza. Really, truly shouldn’t have.

  I cock one ear, listening. What’s that? Nothing to say?

  I never retrieved my stiletto from the Cockatrice. My saucy steel sister’s dead. I wipe a tear for her—so sad—and reach deeper into that drawer. A black-lacquered cane, silver dragon’s head curling on top. I grip it two-handed, and pull. Electric light licks eighteen inches of forged steel. Ooh. I shiver, and think of kisses. Long hard blade sliding into flesh, questing deeper . . .

  Mmm. I test the blade’s edge with my tongue. Ahh! It tingles, a subtle coppery question: How should I do Todd? A swift thrust and gurgle? Or something more rewarding? Play with my food before dining, oh yes. Miss Lizzie will dance with your shadow, Malachi Todd. Dance until you bleed . . .

  My, my. Such carnal thoughts. I want to press my thighs together. Blood bubbling up his throat, his rattling gasp of surprise as I suck the gore from his dying lips . . . and Eliza’s anguished scream. I hope I can hear that. I want to relish her heartbreak, as this unholy monster she’s besotted with comes to a grisly end at my hand.

  I laugh, cruel. Poo
r Eliza, for no one sees you now. See how it feels, Eliza, to be the lesser half?

  I slide the blade home, click! Eliza can’t protest. Don’t even twitch . . . but from nowhere, oily conscience ripples my guts cold.

  Fuck me. Can I really kill a man in cold blood?

  “Shit.” I kick the feeling aside, and it shrivels in the gutter and dies. Enough outta you, ugly . . . and that breathless thirst for guilty blood grins in my belly once again. A parasite what bids me do evil. My very own Shadow.

  I tip my hat with the silver dragon, and tilt a sultry, crooked smile at the mirror. I’m afraid Mr. Todd has to go. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Tonight.

  I skip down the back stairs and onto the street. Fleet Street ain’t far, I’ve plenty of time afore midnight. The breeze has dropped, and electric lights twinkle through a misty shroud that licks my hair, cloaks me in sweetdark safety. No one notices me in this gritty miasma, nor smells me neither. I’ll creep up on Todd’s loony arse afore he gets a single whiff.

  I sashay onto Southampton Row, swinging my cane and singing. “Lizzie went a-huntin’, and she did ride . . . ah-umm . . . ah-umm . . .” That grinning moon winks like the devil through the fog. My scalp tingles, my hair alive with static. “Lizzie went a-huntin’, and she did ride . . . bloody sword-stick by her side . . . ah-umm . . . ah-umm . . .” There’s a jaunty bounce to my skirts, and in the magic-spiced air, I glow, shedding a darkfire halo.

  Eliza’s gone. I’m me, Lizzie Hyde. The bad half of a bad half, the monster under her skin. I spare a thought for Quick’s famous experiment. Test my potion, I can make your problem disappear. Heh. I’ll disappear you, Moriarty, my love. Into a friggin’ ditch.

  But I’m too damned happy to think about Quick now. King Eddie’d be proud. Ooh, now I’m blushing, imagining my papa’s pride. We’ll dance the waltz, swill all the gritty-shit gin in the Rats’ Castle, sing at the top of our piss-ant lungs. Cackle, lie, seduce, break fingers and faces and hearts until our howling hunger is satisfied. Set a match to this black and buggered world and laugh as it screams.

  Shouldering my cane, I cross New Oxford Street and head for Drury Lane, the church’s tall steeple sucked into hungry fog. Hands on hips. Hmm. Across Covent Garden, to the Strand and Mr. Todd? Or turn right to Soho? It’s at latest nine o’clock. Hours until our fatal rondy-voo, and I’ve coin in my pocket and fire in my belly. Surely a little detour can’t hurt. A gin and a gentleman would go down nicely, so they would . . .

  Fuck it, then. I spin on one heel and head for Leicester Square. “She met Mr. Shadow by the hollow tree . . . ah-umm . . . ah-umm . . .”

  A drink, a tasty pipe. Maybe meet me a handsome gent who’s up for some fun . . . What’s that you say? Shut up with your god-rotted preaching. There’s more’n enough Lizzie to go around.

  “Met Mr. Shadow by the hollow tree . . .” I skip, twirling my cane. “Said, Mr. Shadow, will you bleed for me . . . ah-umm . . . ah-umm . . .”

  Furtive fingers fasten on my purse.

  Well, shit. It’s that pickpocketing dwarf again. I grab the hand and, clonk!, clock my dragon over the bastard’s noggin. He staggers, cross-eyed. I frisk him, filch the purse he’s already stolen from someone else. “Can’t trust no one these days.”

  He moans, forlorn. I kick his guts to shut him up. Whip out my blade, schwing!, and advance. “No second chances this time, scumbucket.” He pisses himself again, watery eyes wide with fright, and I laugh and laugh . . .

  And that’s when I see him. Slinking from a doorway, half vanished in thickening fog. Tall hat, dark brows, a devil’s hooked nose . . . and a flash of red-lined cape.

  Becky’s killer.

  Well, now. I sheathe my blade again, and the piss-stinking thief scrambles up and bolts. Mr. Dragon murmurs in protest. Don’t fret, sir. We’ll have blood for you yet. Because deep in my secret flesh, some mad and famished thing hungers not for justice, but retribution . . . and now I know it ain’t no faceless creature.

  It’s me.

  Don’t think. Don’t argue. Just follow.

  Down the darkling street my quarry goes, cape swirling in giddy mist. His footsteps echo, click! clack! I hurry after, a growl brewing in my throat. Towards Soho, where the theater crowds thicken, a cheerful rainbow riot. On the corner, a rakish ballad-seller bellows a love song, warring with the raucous accordion waltz spilling from an overflowing gin palace. Professional ladies prowl, painted eyes a-tilt. But Enforcers hunker and brood, and soldiers, too, in scarlet uniforms, charged arc-pistols glowing purple. Gangs of tough lads mutter and mooch, sullenly kicking the dirt. The taut air hums. Storm’s a-coming.

  Unfazed, Red Cape strides through. He’s rich custom, but he don’t stop for a drink, nor pay no mind to the ladies. I spy Rose, blond pigtails and cherry garters. I flips her a wave. Grinning, she waves back.

  Likes a bit o’ fantasy. My fingers clamp tight on the dragon. It hurts. I like it. Oho, Lizzie’ll give him fantasy, all right. A lurid nightmare. They say you live for twenty seconds when your head’s sliced off. Some Frenchie counted the blinks once, after the guillotine’s blade went schwing! When I do for this red-caped killer, I’ll tell his bleeding head, this is for Becky Pearce, you god-rotted son of Satan. This is for ME.

  Heh. I’ve a flair for this. The cove deserves an ugly death. Who are you to say what he deserves, Lizzie? Eliza would argue. Are you a court of justice?

  Damn right, I am. The kind of justice a small-time grifter like Becky can’t never get. Besides, Mr. Rude Bastard Red Cape pissed me off. If that’s good enough for Mr. Todd, it’s mighty fine for me.

  But my quarry’s hoofing it at speed into a side street. I grab my fancy skirts, shoulder my way from the crowd, and break into a trot. The noise recedes. This rickety alley stinks of ordure and coal dust. A silvery finger of moonlight cruelly points my way.

  Oi. It’s Mr. Todd Alley, where that ugly henchman with the rusty blade tried to do for me. How’d that work for you, turdface? Gotta give Todd his due: he ain’t afraid to announce his opinion of arseholes.

  I grip my cane tightly and creep on. Red Cape heads for that same shambling shitbucket of a house. A gaunt cove in a bowler hat shakes his hand . . .

  Well, hell. It’s the singing bloke with the glass eye. From the omnibus, what Eliza suspected for a Royal spy. So who is he spying for, then?

  I can’t hear their furtive murmurs. I edge closer, ducking that finger of moonlight this time. Offing the two of ’em ain’t no trouble. Wrong place, wrong time, Glass Eye. Jesus, I’m teary-eyed over here.

  All stealth and wickedness, I slide my blade free.

  The stranger behind me laughs. And wraps his arm around my throat.

  Bloody hell. Not again.

  I stagger back. He’s choking me, I can only gurgle. I struggle, but the lucky fucker has caught me off guard, and easy as you like it, he drags me kicking into the dark. Twenty feet, thirty, out of earshot. I’ve dropped my cane. I’ve got nothing. I thrash and wriggle. Fuck me, I’ve no time for this. Red Cape’s getting away . . .

  Clunk! My skull hits brick, dizzying. Face-first against a wall. Steel flashes, a blade point beneath my ear. A gravelly whisper, dark with threat. “Five seconds, and I open your windpipe. Who are you?”

  Trapped giggles cramp my chest. Another of Red Cape’s sick-arse henchmen, is it? Good luck scaring me, lackwit. When I’ve had Mr. Todd’s razor at my throat—his crimson vengeance splashed on my face, and me but a quiver from next—for an ambush, that’s sort of hard to top.

  I gulp brandy-scented air. “Fuck you. That’s who I am.”

  Eyes open, I wait for the end. Will it hurt? Will I see my lifeblood, splashing over his hands? They say you live for twenty seconds. Perhaps it’ll even feel good.

  But another hand pulls him off me. A strong, battle-scarred hand. The first bloke curses, and in a stray flare of light I glimpse ice-cut cheekbones, reddish hair under a wide-brimmed hat . . . and eyes of glitter-sky blue.

  “François, arrête,�
�� hisses Remy Lafayette. “She’s a friend of mine.”

  PEDE POENA CLAUDO

  THE BROTHERS LAFAYETTE STARE, KISSED BY MOONLIGHT. Alike, yet not alike. Shadow kin, each filling in the neglected spaces of the other. Tonight, Remy’s pale, agitated, his skin slick under the moon, but still he’s strong and bold. Substantial, his living shadow marking the dirt. Remy takes up room.

  François, au contraire, is glassy. Less real, somehow, as if once he were solid, but now he’s worn through. In these clothes—stained coat, torn scarf, hair awry under that moth-eaten hat—he’s near unrecognizable. Dangerous, that sickly glitter in his eyes. Not a man to be trifled with.

  Well, screw that. Captain Consumptive trifled with me first. Same old tale: Eliza gets the charm, I get the temper. No one sticks a knife in Lizzie’s face and ends the day smiling.

  I retrieve my hissing dragon from the mud. An inch of exposed steel glitters, tempting me to go a-slicing. Damn, I ought to kill ’em both for thwarting me. If Remy twigs I’ve rid meself of Eliza . . . but I grit my teeth, and sheathe the blade. I know these men. Remy were once my lover. That counts for sommat. Don’t it?

  “Why’d you do that for?” I hiss. “I nearly had him.”

  “What are you doing here, Lizzie?” Remy keeps his voice low.

  “Doing a job, that’s what. And you just screwed it. You and god-rotted Eliza . . .”

  He gives a tiny headshake, and flicks a meaningful glance towards François that warms my vengeful heart.

  Remy hasn’t revealed our secret. Tonight, I see him through my eyes, with none of Eliza’s cringing excuses, and he’s so bleedin’ magnificent my head hurts. Hell, we’re practically married now. God rot it, can’t we just . . .

  François the Glass Prince ignores me. “Remy, we haven’t time. Get rid of her.”

  I saunter up, hand on hip. “And who in hell d’you think—”

  “Lizzie, peace.” Remy’s impatience slices. “Which was your target? The tall fellow, or the glass-eyed?”