Corroded tscc-3

by Karina Cooper

  All things come around full circle, it seemed. I would take the coin I’d need to repair the glass out of his arrogance, as well.

  I glossed over many of the notices. It took some recalibrating of my own awareness, but for the first time in my years of collecting, I ignored the ones that called for living delivery, debts collected or items found and looked instead for those demanding assassination.

  It was not an act that settled comfortably upon me. I had always maintained two rules: I did not collect children, and I did not murder, for coin or otherwise.

  The former because I had seen firsthand the terrible price children paid for such machinations. My first collection had culminated in the rescue of young girls taken by them what should know better.

  The latter because I was no murderer.

  To kill a man, to lose one’s soul by taking another’s, had never been worth the coin offered. Beyond that, purses so heavy as to warrant the death of the mark were also usually challenged by other collectors. I sought for one, in specific, and knew just how to find him.

  There were two demands for death upon the wall that night, and the coin was enough to make even my eyes go round.

  Yet it was the third call for the retrieval of a man, a notice that suggested capture alive for justice was preferable but deceased with proof of identity tolerable, that garnered my interest.

  Jack the Ripper.

  It was not the first time I had ever seen a collection notice for the man, though ’twas the first I’d seen with his newly claimed moniker upon it. He was quite a sight more infamous now.

  A man worth the time to claim. I could not be the only collector to think so, though only one would leave the notice upon the wall. That the paper was not yet marked meant it was fresh.

  There was no purse attached, which surprised me, only an indication that one should request audience with the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee for reward.

  The Committee had formed only last September, bolstered by businesses concerned that the murders committed by the one they’d formerly called Leather Apron were affecting trade. A cold-hearted motive, but one that spurred men into action. If I recalled the articles correctly, one George Lusk had been nominated the chairman of the committee.

  His would be the first avenue by which I would gain information.

  I reached into my coat and plucked the knife from its sheath at the front of my corset. So cleverly made was the whole that the blade acted as one more slatted support, with its twin acting the same at my back. I drew the first from the top, and the latter from the bottom, which made for fluid arming when necessary.

  This time, I only required one. Very carefully, I set the point of the blade at the top of the notice and carved a line down the middle.

  I’d perceived a pattern, in my years collecting. The standard mode of operation demanded that the notices were to be pulled from the wall once a collector accepted one. This kept collectors from, well, getting in each other’s way—either terminally or otherwise. However, over the years, there had been some calls for assassination that were not pulled so much as marked.

  A single slash down the middle, as if the perpetrator dared the rest of us to challenge him for the winnings.

  I believed my rival to be the man who taunted with the display. Not only was it exactly the sort of game he would enjoy, but deliveries of flowers upon my stoop or window sill had coincided with these marked notices. As if I were personally invited to the game.

  The deliveries had stopped for a while, and I’d considered myself rid of the man for good. How wrong was I. When next I saw him, it had been over my husband’s bleeding body.

  As I sheathed my blade and looked upon my handiwork, I felt no satisfaction at the act. No job well done. Only a pit in the depths of my belly, cold and aching.

  I intended to collect the Ripper alive, but if I knew my rival, he would not be so kind. The test, regardless of method, was clear.

  “May the best collector win,” I said to the wintry, damp air.

  There was nobody else in the station to hear me. Only myself, and the fog that swallowed the bitterness of the challenge.

  * * *

  I would need help for this particular game.

  I made my way through the East End, through Poplar and a titch south, where Blackwall played home to the bulk of the Brick Street Bakers. I had formulated no plan, and I did not think myself worried for it. All had moved rather quickly of late, and where that should have made me concerned, I found only determination in its wake.

  The Veil had gone too far, and now I found myself without a safe sanctuary from which to work. This in itself did not bother me overmuch, for I had not considered that far ahead. What I found reprehensible was the manner in which the Veil made known his displeasure.

  Had I dreamed that exchange between Zylphia and Hawke? I knew that my once-companion was very likely fulfilling the role that had been deemed mine in the lion-prince’s taming ring, and the terror that caused me was as infuriating as it was a warning of my own weakness.

  What could the Veil possibly do to Hawke? He was as part of the Midnight Menagerie as the Veil itself; the gardens would not bloom without its serpent to tend it.

  Yet what if the Veil did not consider this?

  What if I overestimated the man’s worth?

  These worries plagued me only until I forced them from my thoughts.

  My goal was to find the sweet tooth. And in order to do this, I would locate Jack the Ripper.

  Two impossible demands.

  One plan to solve them.

  For this to succeed, I needed more eyes and ears than I possessed. The Karakash Veil was certain that neither man had attended the Menagerie’s events, yet evidence suggested the sweet tooth could get in and out of the grounds without raising suspicion. Even I, who could easily make my way inside, could not avoid detection for long. This indicated the collector, the sweet tooth, knew more than I of the ground we had both walked.

  Or that he was truly a master of disguise.

  This I already suspected, for he’d gotten quite close to me on at least one occasion. He’d appeared an old man with a gruff voice and magnificently barbered whiskers one night, just another face in a smoky room.

  How he’d taunted me with that knowledge.

  I needed to out the man—dangle before him bait that he could not refuse. The challenge of a race, to find and capture the Ripper first, would suffice. More than suffice, for the Ripper had become something of a thorn, I think. A man glutted on the infamy of his barbarism, while an artist such as my rival would find himself overshadowed. Ignored.

  Intolerable.

  That I was able to consider these things said quite a bit more for my state of being than any physical act I could have committed, yet I did not stop to think too greatly on the ease with which I understood my opponent.

  The Ripper was only a man. A madman, to be sure, and one whose evil demanded his attention fall on them what could not defend themselves, but such a madman would make mistakes. I needed eyes on Whitechapel—on the Ripper’s haunts.

  I needed Ishmael Communion’s help.

  I left the main thoroughfare, no longer surrounded by the din of the active evening roads near Limehouse. As I approached the East India Docks—not far from the West India Docks where I once would make my way home—the pall that fell over the area became a noticeable heaviness.

  I did not imagine that my passing had gone unmarked, but I had not yet considered how I would make my needs known to Ishmael if I could not find him. As a collector, I was given a certain amount of leeway, yet I was still not of the crew. Loyalties ran deeply in such matters.

  I was not made to wait long before finding my passing challenged.

  “‘Alt,” came a gruff demand, subsequently followed by three men stepping out of the fog.

  Even through the respirator I wore, I could scent the acrid stench of fish from the decaying Thames just south of us. The Isle of Dogs tended to reek of the st
uff, what with being surrounded by the fetid river on all sides.

  I obeyed, but did nothing to make myself appear harmless. “Collector business, lads,” I said, my voice muffled and flattened by the mask I wore. It did not appear overly feminine, and my repaired coat did much to soften those lines. “You’ll want to step out of my way.”

  In a gang such as the Brick Street Bakers, there were ranks of men, from the highest rufflers to the lowest abrams.

  There were females among the crew’s number, naturally, but their rankings were of somewhat less clear origin to me; many fell along definitions of prostitution, beggary and bait.

  Of the three men who faced me now, I placed two as whip jacks—them what pretended to be sailors fresh from a wrecking and eager for begged coin to get back to port—and perhaps the wiry one as more of a ruffler. He had the look of a soldier’s mark about him, unkempt enough that any passerby might think him made daft by war and unable to tend to himself.

  Beggars, the lot, but dangerous all the same. And none too pleased to find a collector in their midst.

  The jack in the middle, a broad-shouldered man, folded his arms over his chest and sneered. The other, whose hair was dark in my yellow lens and his eyes narrow and set close together, spat upon the ground and said, “We know why’s y’ere. Don’t got no truck wif c’lectors.”

  “I see.” My fingers twitched, so suddenly that the motion surprised even me. Yet as they did so, a curl at my sides, I found a slow, humorless smile pull at my lips. “Well, mates,” I told them, “I’ve got truck with you.”

  The ruffler shifted uneasily. “It’s a collector,” he pointed out, just in case his crew had misheard that fact. “Maybe we oughter—”

  “Shut’cher gob,” growled the speaker of the three. “Bartie’s done tow’d us ’bout that c’lector bird on ‘im. ‘S’her.”

  Bartie told them what about me?

  Oh, for the love of all things nonsensical and crass. Bartholomew Coventry, that bloody fool. Of course he’d tell his mates of the collector on him, and I doubt he’d leave the bit out about my sex.

  “I’m not here for him,” I said, flicking that away with a dismissive hand. “It’s Communion, I want—”

  Would that I’d minded my words much more clearly. At that bit of revelation, all three men glanced at each other, and then at me. I had no other warning before the talker snarled, “Gotcher.”

  I had not intended this moment to go to loggerheads, but it seemed I was unable to avoid it. Once decided, I no longer cared to try. A brawl they wanted, a brawl I would deliver.

  After all, I was bleeding invincible.

  The beauty of the moment was not lost on me. Mired as I was in the lingering grasp of sweet bliss, I could admire the ease with which they broke into motion. As though time ebbed to a slow, distinct focus, I watched as a bead of sweat pearled on one man’s grimy temple, while the other shoved his hat askew with the force of his movement.

  Two of them came at me as one. I noted in the corner of my vision that the ruffler darted back into the street, his shoulders pumping with effort.

  I smiled. No fear filled my belly, no anxiety or concern. Given wing by the resin Hawke had fed me, I embraced this moment with all the glee of a pugilist eager for a bout.

  Though I was not prepared to square against two larger men than I, at least they hadn’t counted on my skill. There was something about being a woman that tended to put a larger man at greater ease. As if he were convinced that I would be so much less effort than a collector of a different sex.

  I took great delight in proving them wrong.

  A large fist came for my fog-preventatives, open-handed as if he would tear them off. I simply stepped back, a precise pace that forced him to over-extend his reach. Catching his meaty wrist in my hands, I turned and pulled him hard against my back, then over in a move taught me by a faceless man I sometimes met in my dreams. A memory of the good monsieur’s influence, I think.

  Wherever it stemmed from, the maneuver had served me well.

  The jack sprawled across the damp street with a grunt—shame, I think, surprise and anger—and allowed me the opportunity to duck the other fist aimed for the back of my head.

  I danced to the side, but this took me closer to the second assailant, and this surprised him, as well.

  I believe that neither man was used to the concept of a woman fighting with any more skill than claws and words. They ought rather to be grateful I kept my blades sheathed.

  I rammed my elbow into his chest, danced around him so gracefully that I briefly entertained a shaft of dreamy amusement that the Society vipers I’d left behind could not see me move with such talent now, and drove my foot into the back of his knee. He pitched forward, cursing with great enthusiasm.

  I laughed. I should not have. It was unwarranted, and more than a little mean-spirited of me.

  I did not care. Nothing about this moment seemed quite right. I was eager for the fight, itching to spill blood, and that was not the type of collector I had always chosen to be.

  Yet here I was, with my booted foot pulled back.

  I allowed myself no sympathy. No warning as to what bounds I flirted with. I simply acted.

  Crunch. The sole of my grimy shoes found his nose.

  Blood gushed, painted black through the yellow lens.

  Crack! My vision went white, then double, and I stumbled to my hands and knees as pain wracked through my skull. My respirator unhinged on one side, and I spent precious seconds catching the shaped mouthpiece before I lost it in the scuffle.

  “Get ‘er!” shouted a new voice, an angry one, and I heard the raised answer of more as men of several builds, ages and ranks in the canting crew stepped from the shadows like ghosts of the fog made flesh and blood.

  Anger undercut the echoes of pain in my head, and I forced myself to my feet.

  Hysteria, the likes I had never before entertained, filled me. It was not the screaming kind, or the likes which culminated in tottering laughter.

  Violence replaced dreamy amusement. Mockery to rage.

  I would not be brought low by a tangle of men.

  I unhooked the respirator, jammed it into my belt, and spread my arms wide. “Come on, then,” I taunted, and could not even mark the reasons why. “Take me down, if you dare!”

  They dared. What had begun as two against my confident one became three, then five. Then seven. I held my own for a fraction of a moment, blooding more than my fair share, until I stopped caring of the pain in my fists, my cheek, my head. Anger was all that drove me, rage so black I could not understand where it came from.

  My knuckles split, and it did not hurt. My lip bled from a gash caught on a grimy nail rather than from impact of another’s fist, and still I did not cry.

  My back slammed to the unforgiving ground, wrenching the breath from me.

  With every crack of fists on flesh, every gasp driven from my lungs, every boot stomped across the straining slatting of my collector’s corset, I heard the scream of a madman.

  Weep for the widowed bride!

  I would weep for nothing.

  “Enough!”

  The bullish roar erupted across the darkened streets, earning such obeisance that I found myself staring up from the street I’d fallen to, transfixed by the frozen tableau of men caught in various preparations of painful brutality.

  I ached. Oh, heaven, I ached, but the laughter that spilled from me sounded more the insane mirth of my father than anything I had ever heard from my own lips.

  And that was enough to seal the sound behind my clenched teeth.

  “Out of the way,” came the deeply voiced command, and the men lowered fists, feet, rocks and bits of pipes.

  I do not know how close I came to death that night, but I would wager that Ishmael Communion saved me a very short swim in the rotted Thames.

  When the two men who’d begun the struggle were slow to move, a large black hand boxed one ear and shoved the other. They cursed, stumbl
ing away, and I was left looking up into stony disapproval.

  He was not pleased with me.

  I gave him the hand he reached for. “You have impeccable timing, Ish.” It came more of a groan, for his ears and mine. I could not manage steady on my own.

  “You’re out of your fool head,” he growled, but he was gentle as he lifted me to my feet. “What are you about?”

  Standing upright proved painful, but not as painful as the beating I’d been spared. I could taste blood on my lip, feel a dull throb in the wrist I’d once hurt deeply enough to require bracing, and my skull would have much to thank me for soon enough, but I was surprisingly hale. Even my palms, where the rope had drawn furrows, did not ache as badly as they should have.

  I felt as if I could take them all on again, and damn the consequences.

  Quickly calculated, I deemed myself capable of mobility and turned my attention outward.

  The Bakers had not left us. They stared, a full dozen in various states of physical description and degrees of outward malice. Hovering at the fringe, the scarred man I’d met earlier. He grinned, laconic and not at all interested in the proceedings, but did not linger with the others.

  Among those, I saw the leavings of my own returned brutality. Blood smeared from one man’s nose, another nursing the bollocks I’d tucked a boot in. More than one would wake to a bruised eye or fat lip, and them I glared at with mad conceit.

  No man would find me easy prey. Not tonight, when the tar rode high in my blood and body. Certainly not ever again.

  Ishmael glowered, his rumbled grunt earning my guilty attention. No malice in that stare, but a great deal of anger. I’d placed him in a damned difficult spot, and I was suddenly very aware.

  I could not apologize. Doing so would weaken me beyond measure in their watchful study.

  I pointed at the men arrayed around us. “They’re hiding a quarry,” I declared. “Collector notice on your mate Coventry.”

  There were grunts, curses. Even a snarl or two, and a threat I did not bother to address.

  Ishmael’s looming figure did not so much as twitch. “Whose?”