by Elsa Holland
“She is my fiancée.” She just didn’t know yet.
Morrison lifted his hand in surrender. “No judgement here. But mate, it will help if we can see what we are dealing with.”
“I have photos.” Vaughn unwillingly suggested.
“Of course, you do,” the inspector replied.
“Fuck off.”
The inspector raised his hands in the air again. “Do you think she will agree for us to see those?” The inspector looked at his face. “There’s bloody more, isn’t there?’
Vaughn nodded. “She said her skin belongs to someone else, that it was purchased. She told me that some of these buyers are ‘taking the skin without the girl’. That is what she is running from.”
“Christ.” The inspector stood up. “We’re coming with you.”
“I’m leaving on the next train.”
“We’ll be on it or the one right after.”
CHAPTER 66
Edith didn’t want to open her eyes, but the nausea rose and she lurched to the side to vomit. Then dry retched.
Once Vaughn left this morning, she hastily packed her things and went to the train station. She had known her fate was sealed but she didn’t need to make it easy for them, nor would she lead them to Vaughn. And perhaps there was still the chance of escape. Maybe she should simply jump on a boat to Africa and take her chances when she got there? But those aspirations died a quick death; she hadn’t seen the man coming, only smelled the chloroform as it came over her nose and mouth.
The aftertaste of the chloroform sat at the back of her throat and her head throbbed. Her arms were weighted and there was a clinking sound as she moved—she was chained. The floor below her was freezing and the air smelled dank and moldy. Light came in from a bared opening in the door.
For a moment, she almost sobbed. Almost, but then that skill she’d mastered of shutting down every feeling stepped forward. She would make sure she felt nothing, gave nothing. Only he had slipped through, her lovely Butcher. Only he had made her feel, made her realize the beauty in feeling.
The last time she had visited her Collector for a viewing he had almost forced himself on her, but she had been protected by the rules around having a Painted Sister: you bought the right to view the body, you owned the skin, but you did not have sovereignty over the girl nor her sexuality. That she was clothed and untouched was simply timing.
Her Collector had taken the leap and gone rouge, no longer abiding by the rules that governed them all. When found out there would be consequences for him even if for her it was now too late to stop her fate under his umbrella of power.
There was no doubt in her mind what would happen now that she had run. The Collectors as a whole would see her punished—what would happen if all their living art decided they’d had enough and walked away? The contract was clear; once a possession, always a possession. Yet she had run and, regardless of her reason for doing so, if her Collector decided to punish her excessively and ignore her rights, that was the lesser sin.
Would the greater group of Collectors understand she had run to save her life? Most likely, but that wasn’t going to help her now.
He had tried to have her killed once before, had sent the Skinner to her while she lived at the Hurleys. There was no doubt in her mind that he had sent for the Skinner already now he had caught her. She’d had plenty of time to come to terms with her death as a likely outcome, it was less of a concern than the road that would lead to it.
Her Collector would take her body as he would take her skin, she braced herself for that. He would not be kind. Pain and humiliation were merely the starting point for what he had in mind for her. She would stay alive as long as she could, go through whatever she had to, while looking for a chance to escape, as unlikely as that was. She would die before she gave up. Edith started to run every possible humiliation and every possible way he could rape her through her mind, preparing herself to get through it and out the other side. ‘I have a body, I am not my body.’ She chanted the thought in her mind. Prepared herself even if the event that followed was death with the Skinner.
Hours later the bolt slid back in the door and it opened. Her bladder begged painfully to urinate and her throat was so dry that it was difficult to swallow.
There he stood, her Collector. A tall, thin man with a narrow, arrogant face.
“Hello, my little sparrow.” He walked into the cell. “I don’t think you ever came to my stronghold; if you had, you would never have come to Edinburgh.” He walked over to the corner of the cell closest to her and undid his trousers. Her muscles tensed and she could hardly breathe as he took out his phallus. He proceeded to urinate, the room filling with the smell. “It pains me to leave you here but, truth be told, I am feeling less than gracious towards you.”
The urine streamed down the wall and flowed towards her, soaking into her dress. She soon felt the fluid against her skin.
He buttoned up, walked to stand before her and looked down.
“I want you to know that I am going to hurt you, Edith. I am going to defile you, and I am going to make sure that your handsome beau knows. And then, when I am done, you will join my collection of skins.”
Edith swallowed, listened to the list of actions he threatened and would absolutely deliver. I have a body but I am not my body.
It was hours later that someone came for her, by that time she had released her own bladder. She was given water, washed and dressed in a clean shift, but nothing else. Then taken to a room with no windows where he was sitting in a large chair. He waved the staff off and the door was closed. A large black table stood in the center of the room. Three books were lined up at his end. Edith shook despite her inner chant; the reality was that where her body went so did she and the next few hours would be close to the worst she had lived.
They didn’t say anything for a while. He just looked at her, fingers steepled, as he thought through his plans.
“Have you ever run your hand over a human skin?” He didn’t wait for her reply. “It feels totally unlike living breathing flesh, it becomes a leather. You see those books on the table? I am thinking of having parts of you used to cover them. I had considered using little Gillian but, being our Skinner’s first, he left a nick or two in the skin I hear, shaved the fat too close off the skin weakening it in parts.”
Bile rose in her throat and she swallowed it back down. He would love to rape her as she was covered in her own vomit, the man was vile. Edith pulled her shoulders back.
“Go stand by the table, face it and bend over.”
Edith stood her ground, he’d have to work for his revenge.
“I see.” He stood up and removed his jacket, loosened his necktie and cracked his knuckles.
Her legs weakened.
In three long strides he reached her, dragging her by her hair to fling her face down on the table, hand pressed down on her back. Edith pushed upward and found he was much, much stronger than he looked. He gave a satisfied laugh, realizing, no doubt, that she had underestimated his strength. He leaned down and spoke into her ear. “Surgeons are strong. One can’t saw through the limbs of the human body in under a minute without a great deal of strength.”
Edith struggled under his hold and he laughed.
“So, my little sparrow, did you give the handsome doctor what you chose to withhold from me?” Fear spiked deep into her gut. Cox ripped at her skirt and, despite her determination, her whole body started to shake. If she hadn’t already urinated, it would be flowing down her legs.
“Did you fuck him with legs wide so he could see the picture I had painted on your cunt?”
His fingers pressed cruelly into the folds between her legs, pushed deep until she yelped, but she didn’t cry. She had prepared for this, had known it would come. It was just a matter of how long it could last, and how long she could keep herself from crying.
His fingers moved roughly inside her. “Where is that sweet little hymen I was so hungry to have? All gone, it seems, but there are other pl
aces that I can take.”
“My rights as a Painted Sister must be respected.” Edith fought to stand but his hand on her back kept her down. “You can’t do this to me.” She knew it would mean nothing to him, but she would hate herself more if she didn’t try.
“Tisk tisk. My plain little bird, that was before we had a rogue Skinner. In a few weeks, no one will know what I’ve done with your body, your skin will be salted, folded and beginning to drain in a wooden bucket and your body will be in jars, ready for use at the hospital. I’ll even see to it that your Dr Vaughn gets to slice up your heart before I kill him.”
She stifled a sob as the cheeks of her bottom were pulled open.
“You know, this way is much better than I originally had in mind. In butchery, they say that the meat from a scared animal tastes sweeter; rings true all ‘round, I’d say.”
Edith struggled in earnest and his hands had to grip hard to keep hold of her. He pressed his chest down over her back, a claustrophobic weight that held her down, his breath coming fast at her ear from the struggle, the excitement. “I was angry when I saw what you did to your skin little Sparrow. It is, after all, mine. But then it occurred to me, you’ll need time to heal, maybe four weeks, perhaps six. There is a lot that can be done to a woman in that time and not have it show on the skin.”
Edith struggled as if she had a chance at escape. His hands like clamps, crushed her wrists, his forearm pressing down on the back of her neck making it hard to breathe. He laughed as he slowly made it impossible to move, pain screaming where he held her.
“I tell you what. You give this to me.” His fingers pressed into her anus. Edith cried out and he lodged in deeper. “Give this to me and I’ll let him live, I won’t let the others know that he’s seen you.”
“I didn’t tell him anything,” she lied.
“It won’t matter.”
Cox was right, it wouldn’t. Vaughn’s association with her spelled his death, if not by cautious Collectors then by Cox’s associates, the outlawed sect.
Cox pumped his fingers hard and painfully into her. It hurt, he made sure of it. But there wasn’t a choice. If there was even a small chance Cox would be good on his word it would be worth it. She was gone, regardless.
Edith nodded as the first tears eked out of her eyes.
Cox laughed. “Say it.”
Her throat was so tight it hurt to speak. “Yes, yes, I’ll do it. Let him live.”
The weight lifted off her back, his hold on her wrists left. In that moment, lying there without physical coercion and not scrambling away was the cruelest thing he could have done to her, making her own her own rape.
“Open your cheeks for me, girl, let me know I’m welcome.”
She reached back, did as he asked. The pain was searing. Her mind closed then, closed to everything, as her body jerked on the table.
Anthony. She reached for him in her mind, reached for the safety of him, the comfort of him. Her heart aching for him, for the life he promised. A life where she might have had children, a life where they would have debated medicine, anatomy, worked together side by side. If there was a heaven it could not have promised anything better than those dreams, that life.
Hands came around her neck, started to squeeze.
She gasped as the air stopped, the world starting to go dark at the edges. Anthony. Anthony.
She felt him then, felt Anthony with her, his arm as he’d first reached for her and tugged her closer. She imagined she felt his face as it had pressed into her hair. I’m desolate, his whisper as it had moved over the curves of her ear, soft and gentle. Lure me out of here Apple, lure me with your warmth. Her heart called out to him as the darkness washed over her.
Edith woke as a soft, damp cloth wiped down her legs in slow reverent strokes. Eyes squeezed shut, she finally sobbed— she was still here, she was still alive, which meant it could all happen again.
“It’s nice to see you again, Edith.”
Her blood froze, and she sobbed in earnest. She remembered that voice, it was the Skinner. She opened her eyes. He looked nothing like she remembered, as if he were a different person. “You don’t look the same.”
“Shhh,” he said as he rinsed the cloth and started on her arms. “It’s a talent of mine. Don’t worry, I just came for measurements, your Collector wants you mounted on a wooden torso. A good choice I think. Rest, I believe there are festivities planned for tonight. I’m not invited, I have the encore when your nasty skin wounds and abrasions are healed.”
CHAPTER 67
“An urgent message for you, sir.” Price said, as he opened the front door and handed a letter to Vaughn.
I have the pleasure of Miss Appleby’s presence for dinner, I hope you arrive home in time to join us. We have been spending the last few days getting to know each other a little better.
Cox
P.S. I wager I’ve been places you haven’t
Vaughn roared. The sound shook through the foyer as he picked up the narrow hall table and threw it across the space. He was going to kill the man.
Price cowered. “Sir, is everything alright?”
“How is it that Miss Appleby left the house?” He bellowed.
“I don’t rightly know, sir. I took soup up to her room and she was gone, bags packed. I was going to tell you after you’d read the letter.”
Anger as he had never felt before twisted through his body, every muscle curling tight, ears ringing.
“Put out my dinner suit.” Vaughn flung the double doors open and walked through to the surgery, where he selected a range of scalpels, a bottle of chloroform and some wadding. Upstairs, Price had already removed his dinner suit and was pressing it in great haste. If he was going to kill a man, he should look his best. Vaughn picked up the nearest item on the dresser and threw it. How could she have left?
He looked over to the bed where he had last seen her. There, on the pillow was a note. He walked over. There was nothing in that note that could change the fact that she was not here lying in his bed recovering, waiting and trusting that they would find a solution together.
I can at least try and save you. Forgive me.
He screwed up the note and let it drop to the floor. If she died he would never forgive her.
And now she was with Cox, the man who had looked so familiar in the photograph.
Cox was her Collector.
However she’d gotten involved with these people, her life with Cox would have been a misery. There was no jealousy anymore, just deep-seated horror and pity.
By the time Price came in with his dinner suit, the anger had changed from a black fog of the mind to a sharpening of the senses. His brain and body were alert and he’d run through a range of possible scenarios, all with slim chance of success, yet he was willing to try all of them.
Vaughn scrawled a note to Morrison and his assistant, including Cox’s address, hoping they were not later than the next train which arrived in the morning.
The skinning killer, Edith’s tattoos, Cox the Collector, Cox’s involvement with missing servicemen . . . men who were more often tattooed. It all pounded away in his mind as Vaughn was shown down through the terraced gardens to a freestanding conservatory in a small clearing. Tucked into various places in his clothes were his sharpest scalpels as well as the few other items that may give them a chance.
The conservatory was heated by braziers strategically placed throughout and lush tropical plants grew up to the roof, obscuring the tall glass walls.
A woman swung from a suspended hoop above the space, her long locks of flame red hair fanning around her, her body covered in blue birds and cloud tattoos. She was high enough to hang without touching the floor yet low enough that a viewer could almost reach out and touch her.
Vaughn was settled with a twelve-year-old double malt scotch, then the staff left, leaving just the three of them; the woman, Cox, and himself. A small buffet table was arranged with a number of silver domed serving dishes and the bottle of sc
otch. If no one else came to intervene, he could take Cox down.
“It is somewhat of a tradition of mine to do all my special entertainment in this remote conservatory,” Cox said.
Vaughn looked above them as the woman moved smoothly through one daring position after another.
“Lila, my Bluebird. Cost me less than Edith, but she’s served me better.” Cox leaned forward. “She fucks.”
Vaughn took a sip of the scotch scanning the room for Edith. “I see we won’t be wasting time on pleasantries.”
“You always were a pain in the ass, Vaughn. What did you think you would achieve by investigating me at the hospital? Did you think I wasn’t aware of your snooping? Besides, who are you to stop someone like me?”
“So why service men, was it their tattoos?”
“Oh, we are Mr Clever.”
Vaughn put down the glass. “Where’s Edith?”
Cox stood. “Let me show you who your prim little girl really is.” Cox walked to a side door and went into a darkened room. When he walked out, he had Edith on a collar and chain, naked save for the sparrow mask, just as she had been in the photographs.
“Edith!” Vaughn jumped and took a step towards her, heart racing, eyes scanning her every detail. She was not walking properly. The tattoos made it hard to see any bruising. “Edith, are you alright?”
“NO!” Cox yelled. “No, you don’t, Vaughn. This,” he tugged hard on the chain and Edith lurched after him, her hand going to her collar, “is MINE. Not yours.”
Cox led her to a tree and tethered her. Vaughn willed himself to sit, to wait for the right opportunity as his hands curled hard around the chair’s armrest. He’d waited, no one had joined them, the staff had left.
“Did she tell you that this is how she is displayed when I take her to our special balls?” Cox, leisurely strolled around the room, hands in his pockets as he spoke. “Paraded naked in great halls with her fellow Painted Sisters? She is quite the visual, you have to admit. Imagine her on a viewing platform under a grand chandelier, a sublime piece of living art for the wealthiest men across the civilized globe to get hard as they imagine every orifice and every pose.”
