Cold Stone and Ivy

by H. Leighton Dickson

  “I have not, sir. I have been busy chasing Sebastien de Lacey all over Lancashire, Lonsdale, and London. That’s what I’ve been doing.”

  “Well, Ah think ’e’s the best, Ah do. A right smart lad.”

  “I’m so glad. Did I mention I saw a head tonight?”

  “Yes, miss. Many times, miss.”

  “But it was a head, Castlewaite. A single, bobbing head.”

  “That’s terrible, miss.”

  “It was, Castlewaite. Truly terrible. I’ve never seen a head before, just bobbing like that. And the eyes! It still had eyes! Did you know I was sent a heart in the post? A human heart! That’s why they sent me up north, they did. What is it about me that attracts all manner of misplaced body parts?

  “Ah don’t know, miss.”

  “Ooh look!” she exclaimed and glanced down at the locket. It was spinning once more.

  “Honestly, Castlewaite, I have never owned a single piece of jewellery in my life, but now, Christien has given me two. A ring that belonged to his dead mother and now this infernal thing.”

  “It’s right pretty, miss.”

  “It talks to ghosts, Castlewaite. In Latin.”

  “Does it, miss?”

  “Yes, Castlewaite. Believe me, I know how it sounds, but I have seen far too much in these last weeks to think anything but.”

  “Well then, Ah believe it, miss.”

  “It snows, Castlewaite. You just wait. We’ll be shovelling before the morning.”

  He grinned, toothlessly.

  “I should have given it to Frankow. I don’t know why I didn’t. Stubborn, I suppose. It was a stubborn thing growing up Savage.” She swirled the flask in the air. “Castlewaite?”

  “Yes, miss?”

  “What is your Christian name, Castlewaite?”

  “Jerry, miss.”

  “Jerry Castlewaite, may I ask you a personal question?”

  He grinned again. “Aye, miss. Ye may ask.”

  “How did you lose your eye, Jerry Castlewaite?” And she passed him the purl.

  He took a swig, wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

  “Well, miss, it was one of the Master’s ’orses. It was wearing iron shoes and it kicked me in the ’ead, right ’ere . . .” He tapped his copper-plated brow with the flask. “Broke the bone and squished me eyeball like a grape.”

  “Oh, Jerry. That’s terrible. One of Sebastien’s horses?”

  “No, no, miss. The Master. That’s wha’ we called ’is dad. Renaud Jacobe, miss. A right nasty piece, ’e was. An ’ard man, sure enough.”

  He drank again, passed her the flask. “But Rupert, now. There’s a good ’un. Felt bad fer the way ’is brother treated me, so ’e paid for me new eye. Took me down to Manchester ’imself, to the Manchester Royal Eye there.”

  She took the flask. “Can you see out of it?”

  “Aye.”

  “Yes, I mean your eye. Can you see out of your eye?” She took a swig. It was wondrous strange how everything was growing blurred. Even the motions of her hands were slow and echoing. Her lips felt like rubber.

  “Yes, miss. Ah can see. Rupert says it’s got a minachure AE program in it tha’ lets me brain decode the light. ’E says the brain is a right remarkable piece of machinery, which, Ah suppose it is.”

  “Well, I think it is too. And I’m so very glad you can see. Now . . . why don’t you have any teeth?” She raised the flask, frowned, shook it. “It’s empty, Castlewaite? What are we to do?”

  He grinned and reached under the seat, slid a tarnished silver flask out now.

  “Ah’m quite sure yer granddad didn’t make nowt like this, Miss Ivy . . .”

  She grinned back and reached across the cab.

  “A toast,” she said, lifting it to her lips. “To the head.”

  SEBASTIEN WAS EXHAUSTED, and his dead father was fast but he would not give up, not after losing the other two earlier on. So he dogged him through every deserted lane and dark alley in Whitechapel. There was not even the opportunity for a shot, as the villain dodged and wove like a hare. In the pouring rain, the ground was slopping and he was hard-pressed to keep his feet under him. Now he was wishing for some of the crowds of earlier. But his father obviously knew the vicinity well, for he kept his trail to the back streets where no one could lend a hand.

  Renaud began flailing his arms as he ran, and suddenly, the Coburn was released, catching Sebastien like a sail and forcing him to slow a little to keep his balance before wresting it to the side. The villain darted toward an alley yard with a four-foot stone wall surrounding it. With cat-like grace, he leapt into the air, pushed off the coping with his right arm and swung his legs over. He was gone in a heartbeat.

  Easy enough, thought Sebastien, and he increased his speed and sprang, reaching out with his right arm. Something in his shoulder gave way, however, and the arm buckled beneath his weight. His body continued over the wall, but his legs did not catch him and he fell to his knees on the other side. Stars began to pop out from behind his eyes, and he cursed the fact yet again that, only days ago, he had been shot.

  He struggled to his feet and saw a dark shape moving toward him. He ducked, but not quickly enough, for the broad side of a spade struck him flat on the cheek, sending him thudding into the wall. He forced himself to move as the spade struck the wall with the thin edge that would have surely cut him in two. He staggered backwards several steps and reached for the pistol. His right arm was useless, but he was proficient with both and pulled with his left, cocking the hammer as it came.

  “That is mine . . .” growled his father, and the spade came down again, this time across his wrist, and the pistol was sent sailing out of his grip.

  There was ice crackling up the stone even as the blood ran down his arm, and he knew he had little fight left in him. The yard was spinning all around, and the spade came circling in for another go. He couldn’t move fast enough and it connected with the side of his head, sending him to his knees once again. One last time it came, metal clanging against the metal plates in his skull and sending him the rest of the way to the ground. He could taste dirt and grass and his own blood.

  The cold was blistering now as a hand twisted into his hair, raising his chin, and he felt a blade at his throat. A left-hander, he thought in a detached sort of way. He’d never known his father was left-handed. It made a certain sense. Handedness, like madness, ran in the family. He hoped the cut would be quick.

  “That pistol is too good for you,” growled the voice.

  “The people I shoot with it stay dead,” Sebastien grunted, spitting out bits of dirt on his tongue. “Pity you can’t say the same.”

  And suddenly, both the blade and the man were gone, and Sebastien lay there, trying to catch his breath. He crawled over to the wall and managed to sit with his back against it, wondering now if it really had been his father who had just beaten him down. If so, he wondered why in the world he had stopped his blade. Didn’t matter. He cast his eyes across the yard in hopes of seeing the pistol, but somehow he knew his father had nicked it. Failed again. He had lost the head’s men, his father, and his pistol, all in one night.

  To top it all off, a dead man was the London Ripper. Not even Ivy was likely to believe him now.

  Bad luck all around.

  He pushed himself to his feet, hauled his bruised body over the fence, and headed in what he hoped was the direction of the cab.

  “AND HOW MANY grandchildren, sir?”

  “Eight, as of last month.”

  “Oh, well done. Eight grandbaby Castlewaites. Do they have all their eyes and teeth, sir?”

  “Aye, all ’cept the little ’un. But she’ll get her teeth soon enough.”

  She waved the flask around. “That’s grand, Jerry! Absolutely grand! I would love to have wyrion someday, oy? That’s Welsh for grandchildren, in case you didn’t know. But first I’ll need some plant and even before that, I’ll need a dyn. Ah, the dynion. Damn ’em all to hell . . .”

 
“Aw, now miss,” he said, reaching for the flask. “Ah think Ah should be takin’ tha’ about now . . .”

  “Oy? Who’s the greedy girl, now, eh? Not me, sir. No sir.” And she clutched it tightly to her chest.

  The cab door rattled and swung open, and the Mad Lord stumbled up the high step. Ivy raised her brows.

  “And where have you been, then?”

  He flopped himself onto the seat next to Castlewaite, bloody and bruised. His breathing was hard, as if he had tried to outrun a steamtrain and lost.

  “You look like shite, sir.”

  “Ah’ll get up in the dick, now,” said Castlewaite, and he slipped out of the cab to climb upwards.

  “I found your coat in the rubbish.”

  “Are you drunk,” Sebastien panted, “or are you Welsh?”

  She raised the flask. “I’m both, sir. And proud of it.”

  The trap swung open. “To ’olbrook ’ouse, sir?”

  “Please.”

  “And Miss Ivy? Where shall Ah be takin’ ’er?”

  “I’m sure she’s not particular, Castlewaite. Not at the moment.”

  Ivy rolled her head and pouted. The bowler was tipped at an odd angle, so that it almost covered one eye. “I am so particular. Just ask Christien. I am very, very particular. But you, sir, you are peculiar.”

  “Are you Welsh?” He frowned. “Truly?”

  She swung herself over to sit beside him and perched her chin on his shoulder.

  “I am indeed. Did you really not notice?”

  “Honestly, no.”

  She smiled a ridiculously wide smile. “You, sir, are adorable. With your eye blackened like that, you look like a regular rogue. Alexander Dunn is a jewel thief, you know. Did I mention I saw a head tonight?”

  The coach jerked and started to move. He swallowed, not knowing what to say.

  She raised the flask. “Would you like some purl?”

  He was bleeding out of many wounds, his one wrist useless due to the spade, the other useless because of the wall. The side of his head was red and purple and he was soaked to the very bottom of his toes. His dead father was the London Ripper and his brother’s fiancée was rather pretty and very, very close.

  He snatched it out of her hand and downed it to the last as the carriage rattled its way to Holbrook House in Kensington.

  THE SERVANTS WERE discreet, he had to give them that. Even Pomfrey—prim, wigged Pomfrey—had not said a word as the master of the house showed up at the door looking as if he’d just lost a round with a champion boxer, hoisting his brother’s fiancée like a bag of fermented apples.

  He carried her up the stair of Holbrook House, deciding on the Blue Room, the one with the wallpaper. He nudged the door with his foot, carried her in, and dropped her onto the spread. He placed her hat on the night table, began to unlace her boots. They were very fine boots, he thought. Perfect for riding. She couldn’t possibly have purchased them in Over Milling. No very fine shoe shops in Over Milling. He’d closed the last one down years ago.

  He pulled the spread over her and she didn’t move at all. The locket lay in the cove of her breasts, and he stared at it for a moment. It was pulsing like a heartbeat, calling him like a siren the way mermaids called sailors to their deaths.

  He raised his hand over it, willing it to move.

  First it was the spinning, then the flashing—a lighthouse on a darkened shore. It moved from its nest in her corset, rising to hover and spin just beneath his palm.

  Aperi me, it sang in Latin. Open me.

  The voice of angels.

  He wanted it more than anything he had ever wanted.

  He reluctantly moved his hand, not watching as it dropped back down to her chest. He tucked her in, smoothed her wild hair across the pillow, and for the first time he noticed the freckles, just a few across the bridge of her nose.

  Amazing the things he wanted now.

  “You’re too perfect, Christien,” she purred and rolled over, a wide happy smile on her face. He straightened, feeling an unexpected sense of loss.

  He rose quietly, closing the door and leaving the room in total darkness.

  There was a woman waiting for him in the hall.

  She was hideous. Her mouth and nose were gone. Ears too, from the looks of it. Her bodice was open and her skirts torn so that her organs were exposed and hanging. A shawl made of intestines draped across her right shoulder and her entire torso was splattered with blood. What was left of her clothes was shabby, all green and black velvet, and it struck him instantly who she was.

  Blade slash throat ear kidney liver slice

  He sagged against the wall, ran a hand down his face.

  “I’m sorry,” he moaned and suddenly, there were eight others in the hall—seven who had previously been in Seventh and an eighth—the one who had died in the lane before his encounter with his father. Nine women, standing in the fine Georgian hallway of Hollbrook House. The cold began to descend as he slid down the wall to sitting, and he cradled his head in his hands. He closed his eyes, but that did not remove the image of them from his mind, nor the feel of them in his bones.

  The wailing began soon after and his teeth chattered in time. He wished he could be very small, wished he could escape. Wished he still had his father’s pistol. He would follow Lees’ advice and shoot his own head off with it tonight.

  And so he sat like that for hours, shivering and wanting and numb until he felt arms pulling him to his feet and into his room.

  Chapter 30

  Of Bond’s Boys, Criminal Behaviour,

  and Another Letter from Jack

  “GOOD LORD, BASTIEN,” groaned Christien as he peeled the shirt from his brother’s chest. “Have you been shot?”

  Sebastien nodded and closed his eyes, teeth chattering, head sinking into the soft pillow.

  “Two days ago, in Milnethorpe.”

  Christien pulled the old bandages away, tossed them to the floor. Began to examine the stitches that were pulling loose from the flesh.

  “Damn Frankow and his wire stitches . . .” He shook his head. “They can hold a bull together but not you . . .”

  Sebastien grimaced. “Is there any Scotch downstairs?”

  “I’ll fetch some as soon as I’ve cleaned you up.” Christien rose from the bed, moving to the doorway where he had dropped his bag. He spied the chalk symbols across the doorframe, along the walls. The ligaturae spirituum, his brother called them. Prayers of binding and protection. They were old, but apparently still worked. A psychological crutch, he knew, and was thankful for the power of the mind. It was the only way the two of them could be in the same room. Sebastien would normally be clawing his eyes out by now.

  With a sigh, he resumed his seat on the bed. “Why do you do this, Bastien? Why can’t you stay up north? You know what London does to you.”

  “Bertie . . .”

  The wound was oozing blood from where the stitches had pulled away. He dabbed at them with alcohol and cotton.

  “Gads, Remy, you should have seen her face. She had no mouth, no nose. It was dreadful.”

  “Who was, Bastien?”

  “The little woman from Whitechapel.”

  “God, no wonder the Club wants you,” he muttered under his breath. He reached for his brother’s wrists, made sure they were not broken. They were, however, purple and swelling. “Is Bertie asking you to search for this Ripper now?”

  “Of course. But I would be obligated anyway. I have a houseful at Seventh and they’re beginning to follow me around. It’s Father, by the way.”

  “What's that?”

  “Father is your Ripper.”

  “Father’s been dead for years, Bastien. Do you hear what you’re saying? How you sound?”

  “I sound mad. I know. You tell me every time.”

  Christien continued flexing the bruised wrist, twisting it to test the integrity of the bones. Sebastien winced.

  “Sorry. Did you ride or take the airship?”

 
; “The airship.” Sebastien grinned, eyes still closed. “She gets airsick, you know. Sat with a pot in her lap the entire time.”

  “She . . .?”

  “Ivy.”

  Christien blinked slowly. “You brought Ivy to London with you?”

  “We were going to try to find her mother at the docks. She’s fixed there with the little boy, the dead one. Tobias, I think his name was. I’m not sure if she’s willing to come back. I couldn’t ask, for someone tossed a head in the river and I was rather preoccupied after that.”

  “By God, Bastien . . .” He sat up stiffly. “Where is she now?”

  “Hm . . . The Blue Room. The one with the paper. She likes paper, I think.”

  “She’s here? In Hollbrook?”

  “Yes. She’s drunk and her father's a policeman.” His words were growing slurred. “I don’t get on well with policemen, so I brought her here.”

  “You got drunk with my fiancée?”

  “Castlewaite . . . He keeps a little flask for nights . . . like this . . .”

  Christien sat for a long while on the edge of his brother’s bed, his mind spinning in many different directions. The locket. Surely, she’d have brought the locket with her. No wonder he'd lost two hours tonight.

  He sat that way until a pounding on the door roused him from his thoughts and he went down to attend to it.

  “BY GOD, BOYS,” he groaned at the sight in the doorway. Pomfrey was holding it open, eyes sleepy, wig miraculously in place. It was well past three in the morning, but a well-paid servant was never off the clock.

  Henry Bender was at the door, supporting Ambrose Pickett under one arm. Pickett was hobbling, and Christien knew instantly what had happened.

  “Remy!” cried Bender, pushing into the foyer. “Rosie needs tending!”

  “I been shot!” wailed Pickett. “By some bloke under the pier!”

  “Quiet,” hissed Christien. “Into the study. Now. Pomfrey, my bag is upstairs in Bastien’s room.”

  “I’ll fetch it at once, sir,” said the man, and he disappeared like a wraith into the darkness. He would ask no questions. He was good that way.