She shuddered and turned into his shoulder to breathe in the scent of him and bask in his warmth and strength. “I’m glad you found me,” she said.
He tightened his arms around her. “I’m glad I found you, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It always smelled the same. The blood.
Tangy.
Coppery.
He’d tasted it once. It didn’t taste nearly as good as it smelled. Not bad. Just different.
But he wasn’t into that. Drinking others’ blood.
The gasping was what got him every time, and this one was a gasper. Wheezing.
His fault.
He should have cut deeper. Severed the head all the way through. Was he getting sloppy?
He found that he didn’t care as much as he used to.
In the beginning it had been clandestine. Just him and the woman. But now it was different. Something had changed, and he didn’t know what. An indifference.
One would think that if a person killed as many times as he had that the indifference would be welcome, but it wasn’t. He was becoming accustomed to the chase, to the stabbing, to the beheading.
He looked down at his latest victim. Dark hair fanned out behind her, soaked in her own blood that was running from the neck wound. She was gasping for breath, looking at him with acceptance, and maybe frustration that he wouldn’t end it.
At first she’d been afraid, and it was the fear that had driven him. He loved to see the fear in their eyes, the knowledge seeping in that he was in control of their destiny. Only he would determine if and when they would die.
Acceptance always came. Always. He sensed it in their body, in the way they just let go. Sometimes their bowels even gave out. That disgusted him. It was dirty and offensive, and it stank. He never liked when that happened.
“P-please,” she whispered, her voice raw because he’d nicked the voice box.
He’d been surprised when his first victim had begged for him to end her life. He thought she’d fight to the very end, but she had begged him. It was quite powerful, having someone beg you to end their life.
Sometimes he showed mercy and ended it soon. Sometimes he drew it out. It depended on his mood.
Tonight he didn’t know what he felt. He was more contemplative than usual.
He sat down beside her prone body, careful not to get close to the running blood. Tears ran from her eyes and into her hair, and the gasping continued.
Mother had arrived home this evening in a particularly foul mood. Fouler than when she’d discovered that Charlotte had run off. He hadn’t asked what had made her angry this time. He’d learned long ago to keep away from her no matter her mood. But she’d caught sight of him this evening and cornered him, berating him as she always did.
He’d learned to stop listening. They were just words. Horrible words, but just words. Besides, she said the same things over and over. He was no good. He was a sinner. He was just like his father. He was an idiot, disrespectful, bound for hell. It went on and on and on. You would think she would tire of the same tirade and think of something different to say, but she never did.
He glanced at the woman looking up at the stars. To these women he was none of the things his mother said he was. He was their savior, their executioner, their priest, and ultimately their killer. For the few moments that he was with them, he was their everything. The all-powerful.
He looked down at the knife in his hand, twisting it this way and that so the moon caught the glow of the blood on the blade. It was starting to harden, the blood. He knew it would be sticky to the touch, but he didn’t touch it.
She was gasping more now, struggling to breathe through the cut in her neck. Her fingers twitched, and he watched in fascination. He’d never taken the time to watch them die on their own. How long would it take? Did he even have the patience for it?
It wasn’t so much that he didn’t have the patience, but rather he wanted her death to be his choice.
He raised the knife and stabbed her in the stomach, straight down, piercing her skin and her innards.
Her body convulsed, and her fingers splayed, and she made a sound like a garbled scream, and then her body gave out, collapsed. Her eyes drifted closed, but she was still breathing.
That damnable wheezing that was getting on his last nerve and making his teeth ache.
Make her stop!
He wanted to cover his ears with his hands like when he was younger and he just wanted his mother to stop talking, to stop berating, to stop yelling.
But she wouldn’t stop. She just kept wheezing and wheezing and wheezing.
He stabbed her again and then again. He wasn’t certain how many times he stabbed her. Enough to make her stop wheezing.
Her eyes were open now, staring at the sky. He wondered if she was looking at the pearly gates or the fires of hell.
His mother would say the fires of hell because his victim had exchanged her body for money. That was a sin.
Edmund thought it was just a way for her to make money so she didn’t starve. He didn’t blame her for that.
He was just glad she stopped making noises.
Slowly he got to his feet, stood over her head, took her long hair in one hand, and sawed off her head with the knife.
When it came loose from her body he held it above her for a moment to let the blood drain from it. Her eyes were still open.
Then he put the severed head in his bag, tucked it away, making sure to get all the hair in there, too. She had a lot of hair.
When he was finished he looked down at the headless body. Her gown was soaked in fresh blood, and the coppery scent drifted up to him. He should cut off her hands like he did with the others, but it seemed like too much effort. Besides, everyone knew by now that he was killing the working women.
They were easier to capture. They were more eager, thinking they were going to get something out of him if they went with him. Thinking they would give him their body and he would give them money.
That was a sin.
His mother said so.
He’d rather watch them suffer, see the excitement, the confusion, and finally the fear inside of them. That was power.
If he stuck his member inside of them then they had the power and he was powerless. He didn’t want that.
Whistling a tune he’d heard earlier in the day, he walked away, his bag clutched in his hand.
No. These killings weren’t giving him the satisfaction he’d once had. They were too easy. No challenge.
But there was one woman who would be a challenge.
Charlotte.
Charlotte with her big blue eyes and long blond hair. Charlotte who had come into their lives a few years ago and had changed everything. No longer was he the object of his mother’s attention and ire. Mother had turned some of that to Charlotte. And then Mother had been very, very upset when Charlotte had disappeared.
Now she was back. Mother said so.
Edmund wondered what would happen to Mother if Charlotte disappeared for good.
Maybe he could give Mother Charlotte’s head to keep.
He chuckled at that thought and made his way home.
…
His head was pounding, and she wouldn’t be quiet. She continued to talk, talk, talk with barely a breath between words. He wanted to clutch his head and yell for her to be silent, but that would only cause more problems. And more talking. And God knew he couldn’t take any more talking.
His head always hurt the day after he set a woman free. He liked to call it that—setting her free. Releasing her from this mortal life. This disgusting, horrible, mortal life.
And he hadn’t buried the head yet. It was sitting in his bag in his room. He knew from experience that if he didn’t do it soon it would start to stink. It probably already did, but he still smelled the coppery scent of blood in his nostrils, so he couldn’t tell.
“Sit up straight, Edmund. I taught you better than to slouch at the table. The good Lord
knows I tried to teach you many things, but they all fell on deaf ears.”
He straightened and tried not to wince at the pain in his head. They were eating some sort of meat, but it was bland, like all of their food, and for some reason it put him in mind of a cat’s brain. He smiled at that.
“What are you smiling about?” she asked suspiciously. “I see nothing humorous in Charlotte leaving us the way she did. Ungrateful. That’s what she is. And here we took her in, and raised her, and this is the thanks we get.”
Mother didn’t so much raise Charlotte as she did harangue her and belittle her. It was no wonder the chit left. He didn’t blame her. But God almighty, the woman needed to shut up. He was tired of hearing about it.
Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte.
It was all the woman could talk about.
“Looking down on me that way,” she said as she speared her meat with a little more viciousness than it deserved. “And not even having a proper sitting room. Why, she didn’t even offer tea! Imagine.”
Yes, imagine. No tea. How horrid.
“And then that man. Coming in and acting all sanctimonious. If only you heard what they had to say about you.”
Edmund’s head came up, and he finally looked at his mother. “What did they say about me?”
She stopped chewing, and her eyes darted around furtively. “Just that… Well, you know, the same as what I always say. Just like his father. Hasn’t done anything worthwhile in his entire life.”
He’d done something worthwhile. He’d killed women. Lots of women. He considered that worthwhile. Dirty. All of them.
But he didn’t think that was what Charlotte and “that man,” as Mother referred to Charlotte’s husband, had said about him. He was fairly certain that they’d said something that Mother was too frightened to repeat.
Sometimes he wondered if his mother knew.
“That’s not what they said.” He rarely spoke to her, letting her chatter on and on and on. So she was surprised when he did say something, especially when he questioned her or talked back.
She waved her fork in the air, and a drop of grease fell off it and onto her plate. He watched it cling to the tine, quiver, and fall. It reminded him of blood.
“It’s of no consequence now,” she said. “The girl’s gone and is now someone else’s problem. I heard that Lady Armbruster is having a ball in their honor. Imagine that. Charlotte won’t know what to do.” She smirked. “Stupid girl. Never did know her right hand from her left. She’ll fall on her face. Mark my words.”
“What did they say about me?” he asked.
She hesitated, shooting a worried glance at him. “I told you.”
“I don’t think you did.”
“I don’t know why you’re concerned about what Charlotte says about you. She’s just a stupid girl. No better than her whore of a mother.”
Whore was Mother’s favorite word. Everyone was a whore. If you sinned, even slightly, you were a whore. The women he’d killed were whores.
Well, not strictly speaking. He didn’t know what they really were. Most likely, some were servants, seeing as he’d picked them out in the market where all the servants shopped. Some had been whores. Like the one last night.
He liked going to the market in the early morning, because that’s when the servants were there. And he was inconspicuous. People didn’t mind him, walked right past him as if he weren’t there.
Some days he fancied catching himself a blonde, some days a brunette.
He liked reading the newspaper accounts of the murders. All sorts of speculation and they were all wrong. They thought he was of a lower class. They thought he was uneducated.
He grinned to himself.
“I’m going to church in the morning and you need to go with me. People are beginning to wonder where you are, and I can’t keep telling them that you’re ill.”
“You never said what Charlotte said about me.”
“Oh, please, Edmund. Must you harp on that? It was nothing.”
“Tell me.”
Edmund knew that his mother feared him. She’d started fearing him when he’d grown taller than her, then stronger. When he’d grabbed her hand when he was fourteen years of age and nearly broke her fingers as she’d tried to hit him.
She’d been furious but stopped beating him and resorted to name-calling and berating. He could tune that out.
Then she’d started to fear him more when she’d found the dead cat.
It’d been the first one, and he’d not known what to do with it, so he’d thrown it out in the mews behind the house. She’d caught him, and he could see the fear in her eyes. She told him that what he’d done was a sin and that he was going to go to hell if he didn’t repent.
He pretended to repent while he continued to catch the feral cats.
His head was pounding harder. He thought of the head upstairs, and his member grew stiff in his pants. That was a sin, too. Wanting to use his member to do things with women.
But he never did. As much as he wanted to. As much as his member hurt, he wouldn’t do that. It was wrong.
It was a sin.
But whenever he thought of the heads his member got stiff, and it hurt, and sometimes he had to touch it to stop it from hurting, and bad things happened then.
It was really stiff now, and his head was hurting, and he had a nearly uncontrollable urge to go hunting. Hunting for women. It was too soon after the last one. He couldn’t go now. It was too soon.
Shut up, Mother!
She was talking about Charlotte again, about how ungrateful the girl was.
He just wanted it to stop.
Stop for good.
He curled his fingers around the cold metal handle of the knife he used to cut his meat.
She wasn’t even paying attention to him. Shoveling food in her mouth. Talking, talking, talking.
Her voice was like a thousand bees buzzing in his head.
He stood up and walked to the other end of the table.
She’d stopped talking, and it was such a relief. The silence was beautiful.
“What are you doing?” she asked. He could see her chewed up food in her mouth. She tried to swallow, but it wouldn’t go down. Her face lost color, and fear entered her eyes.
He knew that fear. Knew it intimately. It was the same fear he saw in the eyes of all the women he killed.
“Sit down, Edmund. We are not finished eating, and you did not ask to be excused.” Her chin was quivering, but the fear was still there, still vibrant.
He raised the knife, and her eyes popped open. Food came tumbling out of her mouth.
He plunged the knife into her chest. She tried to scream, but he covered her mouth with his hand and stabbed again. And again. And again.
Until she was slumped against him, blood running like a river out of her stab wounds. Her eyes were wide open, but there was no acceptance in them.
Maybe because she’d glimpsed hell right before her death, and she knew that she was never meant for heaven.
He dropped the knife and walked upstairs to gather his real knife. The one he used for his killings.
He wouldn’t get to the head tonight.
That was fine. He would bury it later.
He took his knife and left the house.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jacob was beginning to realize why men needed valets as he dressed for the ball. He’d never thought he’d be at a point in his life where he actually wanted someone to help him dress.
There was a timid knock on his door and Mrs. Smith’s voice through the heavy wood. “A Detective O’Leary is here to see you.”
Jacob opened the door, still trying to adjust his cuffs, and Mrs. Smith took a step back. “I told him you were busy, but he insisted.”
“That’s quite all right, Mrs. Smith. Detective O’Leary is always welcome.” O’Leary had never visited Jacob at his home, so he had no idea what his friend needed, but he was curious.
O’Leary was
standing in the middle of Jacob’s office, and Jacob understood what Charlotte had said about needing a more respectable room to accept callers. Luckily, they were moving soon.
“I will keep this short,” O’Leary said. “Mrs. Smith told me you were preparing for your coming-out ball.” O’Leary’s lips twitched, and his Irish eyes danced.
“You are not funny. Armbruster’s mother insisted.”
“Even I know you can’t say no to Lady Armbruster.” O’Leary cleared his throat and was suddenly serious. “Another body was found.”
Jacob cursed. “And you still haven’t followed up on the information Charlotte provided.”
“My hands were tied by my superiors. Accusing a baron looks bad. However, this new body changes everything. The killer is getting sloppy. He didn’t dump it into the river, rather he left her where he killed her, and Lord and Lady Wallerstone found her.”
Jacob winced. “Was the latest victim missing a head?”
“Yes, and it was not at the scene of the crime, so he has it. I wanted to let you know that me and a few mates from the Yard will be paying the Morrises a visit tonight.”
“So now suddenly they believe Charlotte?”
“It’s the only lead we have, and with the new involvement of the Wallerstones they realize that they needed to do something.”
“What does that mean for Charlotte and me and the ball?”
“Nothing. We don’t believe you are in danger. Edmund never threatened Charlotte while they were under the same roof, and she doesn’t fit the criteria of his victims. I just wanted to let you know.”
…
She was ready early. Charlotte discovered that she didn’t have much patience with the entire preparing-for-a-ball silliness. She knew some women—like Sarah—thought the process as important as the ball itself.
Charlotte also didn’t want to attend this ball. She’d had butterflies in her stomach all week, and she finally decided that she would much prefer to stay at home with a good book, a warm fire, and Jacob by her side.
But she had to go because it was in her and Jacob’s honor, and maybe she would enjoy herself. Maybe she would meet new friends. Maybe it would be better than she thought.
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