Of Coppers and Cracksmen

by Katherine McIntyre

  He ran his fingers through the silken strands of her hair, enjoying the responsive shiver she gave to the touch. “Maybe I just enjoy looking at beautiful things.”

  She gave him a smart glance and smirked. “Our tumble must’ve addled your mind. You’re usually far more eloquent than that, Bernard.”

  He loved the sound of his name in her musical tone. Even after they’d come together, she still moved forward with a strength he envied. No matter how much weight he might be able to toss around, he struggled to divorce himself from the past and to let anyone in. Ellie had been the first in a long, long while he’d told of his upbringing.

  Ellie plucked the absinthe from the table beside them and took a swig before she passed the bottle to him. “Drink up,” she said, casting him a mischievous glance. “I’m sure you could use it after all the exertion.”

  Bernard shook his head and followed the command regardless. The sharp taste of the anise and licorice burned on his tongue, dragging him out of the dreamy reverie from before and back to reality. Except this was a reality he wanted to remain in, sitting in the comfort of his house with the thief who’d stolen his attention and his heart.

  He passed the bottle over to her, and she set it on the table. Her head cocked with a curiosity in those luminous eyes, and the realization dawned on him. She was waiting on word from him. He wasn’t the only one wanting to hold on to this chance while they had it.

  “You know,” he murmured, drawing a finger down the center of her chest. That brought her attention to him. “I’ve been a churlish host thus far, showing you the sitting room alone. There are bedrooms upstairs you haven’t even set your eyes upon.”

  Ellie’s grin widened and her eyes sparkled. She hopped up from his lap. “Lead the way.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Ellie slipped out in the near-dawn hours like the thief she was. Bernard had stirred and she surmised he wasn’t quite asleep, but he let her sneak away undisturbed. The sun had just begun to peek over London, the world the color of dust around her as the sky lightened and those first pale beams crept across the cobblestones. Her body was deliciously sore, and she shivered at the memory of what she and Bernard had indulged in last night.

  Her shoes pounded against the stones as she quickened her pace, wanting to avoid any patrols searching for bludgers and meaters to lock up. Even though a flush heated her cheeks still and the rumpled clothes she wore served as a reminder, she’d needed to leave Bernard’s bed.

  After the truths they’d each confessed last night and after exploring every inch of the man’s body and soul in the bedroom, if she hadn’t pulled herself away, she might never have left. She’d known blokes for an entire lifetime and never felt the connection or understanding that had flared between her and Bernard Taylor. The detective was remarkable.

  And yet she couldn’t give up thieving—not while there was rent to be paid and mother’s medicine to be bought. Which meant falling into the comfort and solace of Bernard’s arms could only spell inevitable heartbreak.

  In the early light, the city’s flaws grew muted, the hazy glow glossing over the cracks in the streets and softening the jagged edges of the broken windows she passed by. Even still, she quickened her pace and scanned every pit of darkness. Who knew where the Butcher might be watching her? Last night at Bernard’s had offered her first blissful reprieve in weeks.

  A dangerous safety dwelled in the embrace of those muscular arms, one she didn’t want to ponder too much. She’d slept soundly by his side, not plagued by restlessness, paranoia and the fears holding her captive every night.

  The puff of the stacks spilled out oily clouds into the air from the nearby factory, in motion for the day. Already, the workers would be pouring into the building, working their fingers raw for a few pence. If I went honest, my family would never survive.

  The tenement buildings rose in the distance, a familiar sight that stirred her heart with a complicated warmth. Despite the violence and decay in Islington, she’d grown up on these streets. Where her mother lived. Where Theo once had.

  She swallowed hard as she closed in on the entrance. Someone lay slumped over in a pile of vomit to the left. Part of the charm of this city had abandoned it when her sister did, if she were telling the truth.

  Ellie sauntered through the halls lined by frayed carpeting covered in mysterious stains. The lights flickered, sallow and haunting. Yet at the end of the hall, her familiar door stood out, worn handle but the freshest coat of paint because Mother took it upon herself to work on the project.

  She turned the knob—unlocked. Ellie sauntered in. “Ma, I’m back. Don’t worry about breakfast—I’m just going to drink a cuppa.” Her voice echoed around the room as she shut the door with a click behind her.

  Ellie glanced to the kitchen, her mother’s favorite spot to make her experimental creations, but no one lingered there. Her heart thumped harder, but she maintained her calm, striding over to her mother’s room, which was barely bigger than a closet. The room was dark. Her heartbeat pulsed in her ears, louder, louder, louder.

  The scent of sickly-sweet coca still threaded through the air, mixed with the cinnamon and clove her mother always kept on standby. Yet their apartment remained achingly quiet, the sort that crawled beneath her skin and lived there. Ellie peered into the room, but her mother’s bed lay empty.

  Focus. Mother could be out on an errand. It wasn’t uncommon for the woman to sneak out for a breath of polluted air even though she should stay confined to her bed far more often than she did.

  Except Eleanor Whitfield always, always locked the door.

  Bile rose in her throat, followed by an all-too-familiar panic. It had descended the first time they’d begun to notice Mother’s illness, and it reappeared every time she suffered a particularly bad episode.

  Ellie swept through the house, panic beginning to rise in her as sure and steady as the sun. She’d been careless. Indulging in a night with Bernard and thinking that because the Butcher had targeted her, no one else in her family might be affected.

  He knew where they lived.

  Panic gripped her by the throat now, same as it had in the church when he’d locked her inside. She loathed this helplessness, the games he played that reduced her to this state.

  Bollocks, she should’ve told Theo. Her sister would never forgive her for keeping her silence regarding the target on her back.

  Ellie glanced at the floor but didn’t notice any scuff marks or distinct signs of a tussle. Not like there would be. Her mother might be a fighter, but her illness had weakened her for a while now, and she wouldn’t be hard to suppress.

  Besides, the Butcher didn’t seem to do direct attacks—at least, not until he struck to kill. A shudder rolled down her spine. He might be one man, but each step he made was calculated so his victims became isolated and desperate. She refused to give him the satisfaction.

  Ellie clenched her jaw and strode forward. If her mother was roaming around town, she couldn’t be far. She sucked in a sharp inhalation as she locked the door and walked down the hall in that direction.

  And if she didn’t find her mother around town, she would need to get hold of her sister and Bernard at once.

  * * * *

  Twilight arrived with crimson streaks across the sky.

  Ellie couldn’t view them as anything but a herald as she wound her way to a familiar stretch of town. She’d searched throughout all Islington and found no sign of Eleanor Whitfield. Dread circulated through her veins and yet she managed to keep a calm face on as she strode from spot to spot. She’d alerted Theo, who’d be arriving at their apartment soon. Ellie needed to make one stop beforehand.

  The derelict old storefront cast a mark upon the corner of the street.

  Broken buildings never frightened her—instead, she saw them as filled with the promise of near escapes or perfect hideaways. And she’d paid the Market of the Macabre countless visits with the constant flow of information between her and the Shadow Deale
r. If anyone might be able to give her another hint of the goings-on around town, he would.

  The Butcher had taken her mother—of that she was now certain. Ellie needed any advantage she could obtain.

  The air around here grew stale, but she didn’t sense the malevolent watch of the monster on her back, likely because he’d occupied himself with her mother. Ellie’s mind blanked, a dizzying precipice. If she traveled down that darkened path, all sanity would flee her mind. She crept up to the side of the building and headed toward the cellar doors.

  Ellie swung them open, revealing the darkened door at the bottom. She descended into the inky blackness unafraid.

  Once Ellie stepped into the hallway of the Market of the Macabre, the unerring sense of dread intensified. It had been a cold winter morning before, but now, a devastating ice storm swirled on her horizon. The hallway spanned before her, the greenish globes attached to the clawed holders casting the space in an absinthe hue.

  The hall was silent.

  An eerie stillness settled through this place like a smothering fog. Ellie approached one careful step at a time as she passed by rooms normally filled with howls and screams by this hour. They might disturb anyone new to what the Market of the Macabre could offer, but Ellie had been roaming each incarnation of the market for as long as she could remember.

  Ellie pulled out her knives. The room at the end of the hall retained a quietness compared to the first rooms where others indulged in their unique proclivities, but today, the Shadow Dealer’s parlor room door hung open. Ellie’s internal warning bells had already been clanging, but now they jangled louder.

  Unease filtered like nightshade through her veins, slowing each step forward until she had to lug herself along. The closer to the end of the hall she got, the more a different stench overtook the usual musty, basement smell of this corridor. This was the putrid, pervasive stench of something rotting, like spoiled milk left in the sun for days. Ellie covered her mouth with her forearm to keep the fumes from overwhelming her, while she kept her grip tight on the handles of her blades.

  Ellie crept forward, pace by pace. Wrongness filtered into every corner of this place, but she couldn’t cut a retreat now. If the Market of the Macabre had vacated premises to a new location, she wouldn’t have the time to find them tonight.

  And she couldn’t shake the sinking feeling of who might be involved.

  Ellie slowed as she approached the open door, mere feet away. Silence echoed back at her, a gnawing, gaping silence that belonged to a mausoleum.

  She stepped inside.

  The setup of the parlor had been dismantled. All that remained of the Scarlet Crone’s former space was the old desk, and the bookshelves along the back wall lay barren of their sundry tomes. Ellie’s mouth dried. They’d moved locations.

  Except, then her gaze landed upon the Shadow Dealer’s desk in the far corner.

  His stacks of books were strewn on the floor, torn to pieces and papers scattered like leaves. Dark spots painted the stark pages, and Ellie followed the trail past the torn paper, past the overturned chair and up to the wall behind the Shadow Dealer’s station.

  The Shadow Dealer had been nailed to the wall like a leaflet, large spikes driven through his hands, his torso and his neck. Blood trailed from each of the wounds, painting the wall behind him in darkened streaks, the droplets scattered to and fro. The man’s wizened eyes had blanked out in death, and his face contorted into a mask of raw agony, the lines as deep and unforgiving as the slices across his chest—precise, deliberate.

  The shakes traveled up Ellie’s body without her permission, and numbness drifted over her as if she’d gotten lost in the mist.

  Dispensing information made for dangerous work, but most of the criminals in the underworld respected the Shadow Dealers for the impartial service they provided. The sole reason he would’ve been targeted was because of his association with her.

  Because he’d offered information on the Butcher of Broad Street.

  Ellie swayed where she stood, her arms dropping. The noxious stench of decaying flesh rolled toward her in an overwhelming wave, but she didn’t dare move from her spot. This monster had systematically cornered her, threatened her, and now he’d sliced each strand of her support. He wanted to make her helpless and abject with fear until she lost her mind.

  Ellie clenched her jaw. Except this monster has decided to waltz with the wrong woman.

  She had survived days in the basement at the hands of Blair and his men. She had survived myriad jobs gone wrong with the sort of thieves who’d leave her dead in an alley. She’d survived with her mother and sister in a city determined to stamp them out. She sucked in an unsteady breath.

  The Butcher of Broad Street had better beware, because Ellie Whitfield was coming.

  Chapter Twelve

  When Bernard rose for the day, all Ellie had left behind was a scrap of paper, the scent of oranges and cloves in his bed and heated memories of the night before. She’d jotted down her apartment number on a note to meet her at nightfall. He’d felt the motion of the bed as she escaped in the early morning, but he’d let her do what she must.

  Night dominated the city, the gas lamps flaring to life as the hesitant sentinels that stood watch over all types of atrocities the denizens of London committed. Bernard headed with a steady stride in the direction of Islington and Ellie Whitfield’s tenement. Relief swept through him that she’d asked him to meet at her apartment this time—their last attempt to meet at a neutral location had ended with him breaking the door down.

  With each sweep forward, Bernard mulled over the patterns. Escalation and isolation were classic serial killer strategies, and the Butcher of Broad Street clearly enjoyed the process. For him, it didn’t appear to be about a murder of passion, but like the cuts the man made in his victims, he chose precise strokes, calculated moves to corner those women before he butchered them.

  That behavior told Bernard several things.

  First, the man had already sent something to Ellie’s door and tried to trap her in the church. The next step would be drastic.

  And second, this man relied more on brains than brawn. Based upon the tall, gangly figure he’d witnessed, the Butcher of Broad Street didn’t have the girth to overpower in a fair fight, so he resorted to a multitude of tools to reduce and weaken his victims.

  Bernard’s pistol weighed heavy at his side. Ellie wasn’t the victim the Butcher might believe her to be, but this monster exploited weaknesses. No matter how the woman tried to hide hers, she possessed them. However, Bernard had lost enough people in his time, and he’d failed to catch this killer seven times now. Ellie wouldn’t be the Butcher’s eighth victim.

  He passed a brightly lit bar to the left, blokes spilling out of the front door, half-rats and stumbling over their feet and phrases. Bernard tensed his shoulders at all the noise, expecting someone to try and pick a fight with him or a pickpocket to check his shoulder as he swept by. No matter how much time had passed since he’d lived on streets like these, the lessons they’d imparted had never abandoned him.

  Ellie’s tenement building appeared in the distance, the dark windows staring at him amid several of the rooms glowing from hazy lights. Five younger ruffians tumbled around feet from the main entrance, fists and spittle flying. Their cheeks were ruddy from drink, but their laughter split the air, a jubilant, foolish thing.

  Bernard shook his head and sauntered past them to the crooked entrance of the tenement building, to the door half-hanging off the hinges. A firm knock could shatter it to splinters. He tugged it open and strode down the hallway filled with a sallow light painting the grim reality of this place. He tried to tuck away his wince at the flood of memories. Walking through an abode like this reminded him far too much of the one he’d grown up in.

  The scent of mold and vomit intermingled as he passed by door after door on the first floor, looking for Ellie’s apartment. The rumpled carpeting held wet tracks along it, amid the pools of vomit and
questionable substances. Thumps and shouts sounded behind one or two of the apartments he passed by, and as much as his skin itched to leap in and break up those fights, he knew better. He’d be stopping one to start a dozen more. Futility filtered through his veins, an ever-present reminder of why he did what he did.

  Focus on the worst monsters roaming these streets.

  Bernard found a door in better repair than the others, the paint a little brighter as if someone had applied care to it, unlike the rest. He glanced to the number on the note again—a match, though he couldn’t count himself as surprised.

  He lifted his knuckles and rapped on the door.

  A pregnant silence followed, until all he could hear was the distant shouts and all he could feel was the reverberations from the people stomping around and slamming things inside the apartments. His gaze seized on the handle, waiting for it to turn. In the quiet space, fears ran away with him—that maybe he’d been too late, and the Butcher had struck.

  The moment it began to move, he relaxed. The door swung open, and he found himself facing the bare end of a blade and the muzzle of a derringer, respectively.

  He brushed his fingertips against the grip of his pistol, until he caught the dark gazes of two women who were clearly the Whitfield sisters. Where Ellie was shorter, with the sort of embers in her eyes suggesting a sinful time and a smile to summon storms, her taller older sister held a somber gravity to her countenance, like a graveyard at midnight. A lanky ginger man leaned against the back wall, his arms crossed and an amused smile on his face.

  “I’m thinking the killer wouldn’t be quite so cordial as to knock,” he called out.

  Ellie’s gaze met his, and her shoulders relaxed as she brought her blades down. “I invited him, Theo.”

  Theo didn’t drop her muzzle. “So you’re the detective Ellie’s been working with?”