These Vengeful Souls

by Tarun Shanker

  Better to tell him about the newspaper later. When we had a plan. When I didn’t feel quite so lost and helpless myself.

  “I think we’re wasting our time with these tangents,” I said. “There must be some way we can deal with Captain Goode directly.”

  “We still don’t know how to find him,” Miss Chen said.

  “If he’s a public figure now, he’ll make appearances,” I said. “There’s probably a ceremony for that Constable position.”

  Miss Chen shook her head. “You are not going to try to shoot him in public again.”

  “No, I thought we would follow him and do what you suggested for the reporter,” I said. “Wait until he goes into a building or a carriage and break it from afar.”

  Miss Chen seemed to consider that, but my sister looked concerned.

  “He’s never going to be alone,” Rose said. “There will always be servants in houses or drivers in carriages.”

  “Not to mention the fact that he may have his own bodyguards like Lady Atherton had,” Catherine said. “Given that his power is not particularly useful in a fight.”

  “What’s your solution if we don’t go after him?” I asked Catherine. “We sit here and wait for him to make a mistake?”

  “We save lives,” Catherine replied. “What was the name of the man you saved at the British museum?”

  “Lord Lister,” I said.

  Catherine looked back at the newspaper for confirmation. “Neither of yesterday’s victims are a Lord Lister. Which means he listened to you. He hid and he’s still alive because of you.”

  “Or his body hasn’t washed up yet,” Miss Chen said with a shrug.

  Catherine ignored that and continued, “The more we save, the more our reputation will improve. People will appreciate it.”

  “How will we know whom to save?” I asked. “We had to wait for Mr. Jarsdel to kill Sir Thomas before we knew of Lord Lister.”

  “Leave that to me,” Catherine said confidently. She peered back down at the newspaper. “We know of four targeted men so far. Cox, Lister, Snow, and Bell. That should be enough to find a pattern—oh, there it is. The next victim will probably be a man named Pasteur.”

  Rose snorted and giggled at that, while Miss Chen and I exchanged confused glances.

  “A little … germ-theory humor,” Catherine explained to me. She shared a quick smile with Rose. “Anyway, I think we need to take the time to research. That may give us some insight into whether he has more plans.”

  “We already tried this with the head of the Society,” I said.

  “And it nearly worked,” Catherine argued. “I figured out the pattern. Only, Lady Atherton ruined it.”

  “If we went after the attackers instead, we wouldn’t have to guess who would be on the list!” Mr. Adeoti suggested, setting his pen down. “I have a list of the Society members, and we could find them individually before they are given more terrible orders.”

  “And we ask them to refuse their orders?” Miss Chen asked. “At the risk of their loved ones?”

  “Oh, well, we’d have to rescue and protect all their family members and friends,” Mr. Adeoti said optimistically. “So with thirty Society members … that’s only a few hundred people.”

  Miss Chen gaped at him and his notebook for a moment, then shut her eyes and turned away before accidentally breaking it apart. “Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

  “Not at all!” Mr. Adeoti said, showing us his notes. “I’m sure we’d get it done quickly with our determination!”

  “And where exactly are we going to keep them?” Catherine asked, looking around the cramped dining room. “And how are we going to keep the angrier ones from trying to kill us?”

  “Out of all the powers we have, Miss Rosamund’s power would be the safest way to convince the reluctant,” Mr. Adeoti said.

  Rose’s face blanched at the suggestion.

  Miss Chen’s, however, brightened at the idea for once. “We’d have to find another place for them to stay. But they would be more cooperative—”

  “No,” Catherine said firmly. “No, we’re not doing that. Rose doesn’t want to be using her powers like that.”

  The defense did not seem to help, though. Rose only went whiter at Catherine’s words. Her chair squeaked loudly against the wood. “I must take a walk” was all she said before she hurried out of the room.

  “Rose!” Catherine called, trying to follow, but I stayed her.

  “I’ll go.”

  I hurried upstairs to find hats and veils. By the time I was downstairs and outside, she was already halfway down the street, and by the time I caught up to her, I’d lost half my breath.

  “Rose … wait,” I said, holding her hat in front of her.

  She stopped and snatched it from me. I glimpsed tears on her cheeks for a second before they were covered by fine netting. “Thank you,” she mumbled.

  I put my hat and veil on and took her arm. We walked in silence while my breath and her tears slowed.

  The ground was dusty and the buildings drab, but the streets were filled with life. Energetic men unloading carts and women leaning out the windows, collecting their hanging laundry. Flower girls and newspaper boys off to ply their wares. A few children seemed to be playing a game of tag down one alleyway, and I could have sworn I heard one of them declare themselves Sebastian Braddock.

  I cleared my throat as we turned a corner. “You should know I don’t like the idea, either. Catching Society members and charming them to help us. I think it’d be too slow.”

  Rose didn’t say anything.

  “So don’t feel obligated to do something you don’t want to do. I know you don’t want to use your power on anyone. No one is going to force you. Did you see how quickly Catherine spoke up?”

  “I did. That’s the problem,” she mumbled, not looking at me.

  So there it was. Catherine had been right to be concerned. “What happened? I thought you felt better around Catherine because she didn’t have a power. Why do you keep avoiding her?”

  “I’m not avoiding her!” Rose flashed me a look full of pain, and I patted her arm, holding it more securely.

  “Just because you have a power, it doesn’t mean you can’t have a friend. I would have thought you would get along.…”

  “We do!”

  “But you act so oddly with her … different than with anyone else here.…” Rose looked so panicked and miserable I stopped. “Darling, I am not trying to force you to be friends with her. It is perfectly all right if you do not like her; I just don’t want you to worry about your power so much—”

  Rose stopped and looked at me full-on. “The problem is that I do like her, Evelyn. I like her too much. I like her more than anyone I’ve ever met.” She refused to drop her eyes as my mind went blank, her response so unexpected.

  “Oh.…”

  “Yes.” Rose’s firm nod and terrified expression confirmed what had never occurred to me. It wasn’t a friendship with Catherine that concerned my sister. It was a romance.

  “I—uh—since … when?” I managed.

  “Since the first time I met her.”

  “I … see. I don’t remember.…”

  Rose’s thin shoulders dropped along with all her defenses, and she shrugged, laughing a little, sounding ever so slightly hysterical. “That morning after the two of you went to Haymarket to see The Valkyrie during your Season. You came back to the drawing room, and when she looked at me I had to hide behind my book. There was something about her eyes.… I wanted to stare at her forever, but I felt like she could suddenly see everything about me and it was terrifying and wonderful. She kept on saying brilliant things about Wagner, and I didn’t know anything about opera, so I couldn’t decide whether to stay quiet and look foolish or say something and sound foolish. And then you turned the topic to the singer’s voice and anatomy, and thank goodness you did for I finally had something interesting to contribute.”

  “I … don’t r
emember any of this.”

  “Of course not. It was a perfectly normal day for you,” Rose said. “It was … a revelation for me.”

  I couldn’t help but think back to the night Rose was taken from Bramhurst. When I had been completely wrong about her feelings about our neighbor Robert. When she didn’t even want to think about marriage. Had I been equally as unobservant about Catherine? Memories of all my outings with Catherine flooded my mind, but she was always the one needling me about suitors. I never managed to turn it around on her. She was friendly with everyone but never paid anyone particular attention. At least not until this past week with Rose.

  Rose leaned her head in closely, trying to read my expression through our veils.

  “Does it make you uncomfortable? I know she’s your best friend.”

  “No, no—not at all. I always knew you would like her,” I said. “I just … wondered … do you know if Catherine feels the same?”

  Rose’s gaze turned to the ground. “I used to hope so. I used to even think it might have been. But that was before I knew about these powers. So it doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters,” I insisted.

  She shook her head, her voice thick. “Not if I want her to have a choice. I don’t want to put her under a spell.”

  “As hard as it is to believe, there are people who love you for reasons other than your power.”

  “There’s no way of knowing for certain,” Rose replied. “Not for anyone I’ve met in the last two years.”

  “But it’s not as if you chose this, either,” I said. “None of us did. How is it different from every suitor simply falling in love with your beauty?”

  “It’s different,” she insisted. “It’s very different.”

  “These powers are as much a part of us as anything else.”

  “Then Mr. Braddock should simply let everyone near him die because it’s a part of him?”

  I opened my mouth. And closed it. I knew when to concede a point.

  “But there are ways of controlling it,” I said.

  “They clearly aren’t working fast enough,” Rose said. “Catherine is more protective than she was even a few days ago. And it’s going to take me years to get it right. Unless Captain Goode offers to help.”

  We turned another corner, circling back toward the boarding house.

  “I don’t mean controlling it that way,” I said. “You should keep training, but there are other things Sebastian did. He found out how his power worked. How close someone had to be to be affected, how long the sickness lasted. Granted, it was from horrible experiments with Dr. Beck but…” I trailed off, a spark sending my mind whirling too fast for my mouth.

  “Ev?” Rose asked. “But what?”

  After that awful night I lost Rose, Dr. Beck’s words had burned themselves into my brain. I replayed our conversation, hating myself for remembering it all so well. Now I almost wanted to thank him.

  “Dr. Beck’s experiments,” I said. “I’m sorry to bring this up but … he—he hurt you because he wanted to find your healing power. Despite your charm.”

  Rose’s voice went very quiet. “He apologized a lot.”

  “But he still did it,” I said. “Even horrible people like Mr. Hale and Camille did everything to keep you from getting hurt. What did he do differently?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t like to think about it.”

  “I know. You don’t have to. Just remember that there’s an exception. Maybe we need to ask Mr. Adeoti what he knows about your power’s specifics. Or we’ll have to find a way to do research in the Society of Aberrations library one day. And if there’s nothing useful there, then we’ll have to observe how it works ourselves. In any case, there has to be a reason and it has to be deducible.”

  “Evelyn, be careful. You’re starting to sound like a scientist.”

  “I know, it’s disconcerting. So disconcerting that I’ve decided to retire. Please continue my work.”

  “Thank you,” she said, hugging me as we walked. “I will.”

  Our final turn brought us back to the front of the boarding house, where Mr. Kent was trying to drag a large trunk from the sidewalk.

  “Did you … have an enjoyable vacation?” I asked him, lifting my veil.

  “Indeed, I saw some wonderful sights and brought all of you some lovely souvenirs,” he said.

  I gripped the other end of the trunk, and it took nearly all of my strength to lift it up a mere few inches off the ground. “Good Lord, what’s in here? A dead body?”

  “Ha! Don’t be ridiculous! What an outlandish joke to make! Ha!” Mr. Kent said before shooting me a scowl to keep quiet.

  Step by step, we lugged this definitely-not-a-corpse up the stairs and into the safety of the boarding house.

  “Is everything all right?” Sebastian asked, finding us by the door.

  “Yes, I’m just trying to decide whether I really want to know what Mr. Kent has been doing,” I said.

  “I went to get Mr. Jarsdel,” Mr. Kent said.

  “You found him?” Catherine asked, the entrance starting to grow very crowded.

  The trunk rumbled loudly in response, startling us all back a step. A pounding and muffled noises came from inside.

  “Oh, he’s awake,” Mr. Kent said. “Mr. Braddock, would you help me show him to his room?”

  Chapter Eleven

  “WHERE DID—how on earth did you find him?” I asked, following them up the stairs.

  “I wondered to myself where I would go if I was released from the police after committing a murder and I had some free time before committing my next one.” They reached the first-floor landing, and Mr. Kent looked back at me for an answer.

  “Mr. Kent, with you, I really couldn’t even begin to guess.”

  “Why thank you, Miss Wyndham,” he said, taking it as a compliment. He looked past me at Catherine and Rose to see if they had an answer. “Someone must have a guess.”

  “Just tell us,” Catherine said.

  He spoke slowly so we could join in when we’d figured it out. “I’d celebrate at … the brothel … where my captors are being impersonated … and are at my complete service. Exactly.”

  “He went back to Miss Molly’s?” I asked.

  “Indeed,” Mr. Kent said, picking up the trunk again. “I simply asked her girls to slip some laudanum into his wine if he returned. Much easier than burning down a museum to capture him.”

  They brought the trunk up to the empty bedroom on the second floor and dropped it in the center. Miss Chen and Mr. Adeoti filed in behind Catherine and Rose before Sebastian went over to close the door.

  Mr. Kent pulled a key out from his pocket and unlatched the lock while the rest of the room watched in tense silence. “Don’t worry, he’s been bound alread—”

  A white blinding light filled the room and my sight was gone. Shouts and scuffling filled the air.

  “Dammit, someone grab him!” Mr. Kent yelled.

  I felt my body shoved to the ground, and footsteps pounded past me toward the exit. And then there was a definitive thud as another body hit the ground beside me.

  “I have him pinned down,” Sebastian said over the sounds of Mr. Jarsdel grunting. “Everyone stay still and keep your eyes closed. Your sight will return in a few minutes.”

  The sounds of struggling continued as I heard Sebastian drag Mr. Jarsdel back against the far wall. Wood screeched across the floor, and as I stood back up, my sight slowly returned to see the blurry shape of Sebastian tying our prisoner to a chair.

  “Evelyn, would you stand by the door?” Sebastian asked, dragging Mr. Jarsdel to the other corner.

  That would put me out of his range. “Are you sure?”

  Sebastian kept his eyes closed, only opening them for brief moments. He took a deep breath before answering. “Yes, I just need fifteen seconds.”

  I groped my way along the wall, keeping my eyes closed in case Mr. Jarsdel tried to blind us again. “All right, I’m here.
”

  “Starting now,” Sebastian said.

  I started my count. After five seconds, Mr. Jarsdel’s muffled yells and squirming grew louder. After ten seconds, they turned into coughing. After fifteen seconds, I stepped forward and opened my eyes.

  Sebastian had let go of him and stepped away. Mr. Jarsdel looked as ill as he had at the police station—pale face, blue splotches, a sheen of sweat on his brow. He was still conscious, and for a brief moment, he gritted his teeth and his body glowed like he was going to bathe the room in light again, but he let out a heavy breath and started coughing, too weak to follow through with it.

  One by one, I pulled my friends to the door, out of Sebastian’s range, where they could keep a hold on me. Within a minute, their vision began to return.

  “Another intimidating start to an interrogation,” Miss Chen drawled, rubbing her eyes.

  A knock sounded on the door. “Is everyone all right in there?” Mrs. Tuffins asked, entering before I could stop her.

  “Yes, Mrs. Tuffins,” I said, stepping in front of her. “We just dropped something.”

  “I see,” she said, glancing past me. “If your new guest needs anything, please let me know.”

  I turned around to find that Mr. Kent had hastily draped a blanket over Mr. Jarsdel in his chair. “Oh, uh, no. He’s feeling rather unwell right now.”

  “How unfortunate,” she said. “Would a bowl of soup help?”

  “He only needs rest for now, but thank you,” I said. “Perhaps we’ll bring him down later if he’s feeling better.”

  “I do hope so,” Mrs. Tuffins said with a smile and proceeded back downstairs, singing to herself. “So many guests!”

  I closed the door and saw everyone had gathered around Mr. Jarsdel. I found a spot next to Sebastian by the window, took his hand, feeling the buzz from his skin, and squeezed it. No matter how many times he did it, it looked like it didn’t get any easier. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  He nodded and squeezed back. No smile on his face but at least a hint of relief.