Corroded tscc-3

by Karina Cooper

  Mercifully, he did not spit in his hand when he offered it.

  * * *

  I entered the Whitechapel railyard alone.

  The fog filled every crevice, painted the air with the foul stench of the factory smoke and the eye-watering remains of rot and refuse. Safe behind my protectives, I watched the peasouper shift—a roiling sea of yellow-tinged froth—and swallowed all of the last of my opium. It should have lasted much longer than a few hours, of course, yet I did not dwell.

  In truth, I was not entirely sure I would escape this one with all my faculties intact. Victory or defeat, my rival would not go down easy.

  The tar left a burning fist in my belly, but from that warmth, I drew strength.

  My re-breather snapped once more into place, affixed firmly to my mouth and turning my own breath into a harsh whisper.

  I had returned. Here, to the collection of abandoned trains emptied for the night’s service, the scattered bones of vacant tracks. Where I’d first faced the murderer who had taken my maid, the monster who had worked for my father. Who had killed and killed again, all in the name of something I could not wholly understand.

  Here, where I would face he who had ended any hope of the life I’d chosen to lead.

  I had expected the Ripper to lead me to him, but I was wrong. To my surprise, the challenge alone had been enough to bring my rival directly to me. I was doomed to forever misjudge the man, it seemed.

  Tick tock, Miss St. Croix.

  “Weep for the widowed bride,” I whispered, and the confines of my respirator swallowed the sound.

  Tonight, we would see who wept.

  My feet crunched on rock and gravel. The steady rains of late had saturated the ground, turning all to a damp, clinging sheet that crept beneath one’s protective clothing and sank cloying fingers into one’s skin. It was the common onset of winter below the drift, where the factory toxins combatted the rain to create a humid shroud.

  I pushed through it, the yellow lens of my goggles outlining the looming thrust of train cabooses and empty stacks from the haze. I would not be caught unawares here. Not this time. I was prepared as I could be, with the net-launching device upon my back and the knives in my armored corset.

  All I lacked was the long-gun Zylphia had borrowed from my butler the last time.

  I missed its comforting heft, a sight easier than Maddie Ruth’s invention, but I knew even without understanding why it would not have mattered.

  I needed to look this man in the eye when I delivered him to justice. Perhaps I’d even hear him beg.

  The thought stuck in my chest. Twisted hard enough to force me to pause, pull in a deep breath.

  Beg me, whispered Hawke’s voice in my mind.

  Never again.

  Bliss wrapped itself about my senses, turning the streaked fog to something stark and near tangible. As if I were clothed in fur. The pressure eased from me.

  Hawke’s whisper did not. Beg me to defile you, Countess.

  I slipped off the path.

  Weep for the widowed bride!

  They came at me from the cloud I forged through, voices spun from nothing. Perhaps I’d taken too much of the tar. Perhaps my intent translated into memories guaranteed to pluck chords of haunted fear from me.

  I set my jaw, forced the haggard voices from my mind. I allowed the net-launching apparatus to hang by its leather harness for a moment, and wiped sweaty palms down my trousers.

  “Where are you?” I whispered.

  The railyard was silent. Echoes of my footsteps rang hollowly as I stepped over a track that ended not far to my left, its space taken by an empty rail car.

  Cherry...

  I hesitated, one foot balanced upon the rail, and cocked my head. A woman’s voice. My name?

  No. Certainly not. Yet a woman’s voice nonetheless. That my mind, soaked in Turk’s bliss, chose to give the sound the shape of my name was simply a matter of mild delirium.

  Fear and opium; a dangerous concoction if one was not prepared, as I was.

  Again, it came. Cherry. Followed by a high-pitched shriek that sliced through my dreamlike state of understanding.

  I spun, device gripped firmly in hand, and tried to pinpoint the sound. The fog distorted everything about me, turned distance into something malleable and uncertain.

  I followed the rails, every sense straining to hear what I could.

  When it came again, it was not the scream of a woman, but the rasped gurgle of breath trapped beneath liquid obstruct. I’d heard this sound once before. Crystal clear, the memory assailed me—pitch darkness, and the struggling burble of a woman’s attempt to scream around the slash the Ripper had made in her throat. Dutfield’s Yard, when Zylphia and I had stumbled upon him and his third victim.

  The fourth murder had been extra savage that same night, as if furious that I’d interrupted his play. The things he’d done to that woman defied explanation.

  I could not allow a fifth murder.

  I broke into a sprint.

  The fog parted before me, as if my intensity were a chisel I followed behind. It closed again behind me, trapping me in a sea of black and yellow and gray. Yet the wild, fearful sounds continued, choking, blunted screams lost in a tide of blood. I leapt off the rail and crossed between two silent train cars.

  The fog thinned. A woman’s feet, splayed wide, thrust from the shelter of the first train car. Her knees were open, as if she’d fallen without care of modesty, and her skirts had pooled, streaked with dirt.

  She lay propped against the siding, her pale hair sodden with her own blood. Her worn features slackened. Life seeped out over her tattered dress. Her skin gleamed stark white in my yellow lens, her blood black; such delightful contrast in my sparkling vision.

  A man knelt beside her, as if in supplication to the alter of her convulsing body. He lifted a fist, sharp blade catching what dim light existed from the railway lamps. It winked, glinting with deadly promise, and slammed hard into the woman’s body. She jerked. Blood sprayed as it wrenched loose.

  “Stop!” I cried.

  He turned, a dervish of shadow and monstrous energy. I saw little enough but for the heavy greatcoat protecting him from the cold and damp, the silhouette of a top hat, and dark hair. Whatever else I might have noted could not make itself clear. I was addled, furious with my delay.

  Angry that I had not found the collector, but the Ripper himself.

  My rival would never be so inelegant.

  How dare he? How dare this ham-fisted butcher mar my chase?

  He said nothing, leaping to his feet and sprinting away. I launched myself after him, muscles straining to carry the launcher weighing them down, when my opium-saturated thoughts clicked into place. Five paces gone, and I halted, the world tilting at the suddenness of it.

  I’d come prepared, hadn’t I?

  With the fragrance of blood rich in the air, a coppery tang that nursed at my bile, I lifted the device to my shoulder, sighted through the rounded cross-hairs at the top. When the Ripper’s fleeing figure filled the circle, coat flapping in his haste, I squeezed the mechanism that would launch the netting.

  Thoop! Compressed air whooshed from the pipes at the top, and the device recoiled back hard enough to wrench the whole of my arm. I stumbled backwards, spun about as pain rolled up my shoulder. Yet I could not tear my eyes away from the long shaft of brown that was my projectile.

  It opened wide, a spider’s web I remembered from the first I’d seen it, and the weights pulled it wider.

  “Got you,” I whispered.

  The Ripper, for all his luck to date, could not avoid it. The net barreled into his back, weights snapping taut and swinging in a circle. Enfolding him tightly, it tripped up his long-legged pace and sent him sprawling face-first to the graveled ground. The glint of his knife sailed into the fog.

  “Ha!” The sound cracked from me, shattered into a thousand echoes only half the fault of the medicinal resin. I dropped the now empty apparatus, fingers de
lving into one of my pouches for the usual braided cord I used to bind my collections.

  A slow, measured clap filled the space between the Ripper’s harsh cursing.

  I froze.

  “I am at once disappointed and reluctantly impressed,” said the voice whose rasping quality haunted me.

  I shuddered as I watched my own memories play out—the whistle in the dark, my screaming warning.

  And then blood.

  So much blood as it pumped from the veins of the man who dared to marry me.

  The collector melded from the fog, a ghost with no form. As if he’d only waited for the scene to unfold this far. He paused beside the inert Ripper, looking down with an expression I could not see to read. His coat was more tailored than the Ripper’s own, his bowler hat pulled low enough that only a band of his face could be seen between the brim and his high collar. I imagined that I saw the gleam of sharp eyes, felt the weight of a stare that saw everything.

  Of its own volition, my right hand plucked the blade from the front of my corset. I would not be caught unarmed this time. “So the puppet-master finally shows his face,” I replied, summoning every ounce of straining courage.

  “Not quite.” His figure half-turned, as if to measure the distance between myself and the man he stood beside. “Fine reach.”

  I would not thank him.

  “Yet I had hoped for more sport.”

  “Taking my bounty wasn’t enough?” I demanded, holding my arms loosely at my side. “Coventry give you no sport, big man that he was?”

  The collector sighed. “My dear,” he said, in that strange whispering rasp of his that kept his voice so unique and grating, “that oaf was barely enough to get out of bed for.”

  Oh, of course. How silly of me. A terrible part of myself wanted to laugh. I choked it down.

  “I had hoped you take more time to enjoy my gift,” he continued, nudging the struggling man with the toe of his shoe. “It took some effort to coax him here, you know.”

  “Do you expect an apology?”

  Now his head turned, that shadowed band between hat and collar fixed in my direction. “No, dear girl.” His tone sharpened. “I expect you to do what you do best.”

  My mouth curved up, a vicious thing I could not have stopped even had I wanted to. “I intend to do just that,” I assured him, venom in every word.

  I could not see if he smiled, but his voice indicated he might. “This, I can’t wait to see.”

  Such arrogance. “You are officially in my sights,” I told him, walking forward slowly enough that I could keep him firmly there. One wrong move, and I’d be prepared. No amount of opium haze, no fear, no threat of loss could save him now. “Collector you may be, but there’s a notice on you.”

  “By the blue skin?” He did laugh, and the sound sent shivers over me. He laughed the way nails shrieked cross slate, the way madness infected and illness spread. That he called Zylphia by such a terrible name only made it somehow worse. “Nonsense. You’ve another to collect first.”

  My gaze flicked to the cursing Ripper, entangled in the net. “Don’t be daft. I’ve got him.”

  “Do you?” The collector turned, presenting me a narrow back. He flicked a hand, and the wink of a razored edge accompanied a whisper of movement. Rope snapped, and the Ripper grunted as he surged to his feet. He did not stop to retrieve his hat.

  He simply ran.

  “Are you mad?” I shrieked; foolishly so, as it was a question to which I already knew the answer.

  The collector’s laugh chortled as he slipped back around another train car. Torn between hunting the Ripper or chasing him, I hesitated a fraction too long.

  “May the best collector win,” came the taunt.

  Fury lashed my flagging spirit.

  I darted after Jack the Ripper.

  Chapter Twenty

  Dreams unfold as if designed without interference. Terrible things happen, consequences are unleashed, and the dreamers watch as if in a play.

  This was no dream, and yet I watched it unfold the same regardless. Too much of the resin, perhaps. Or not enough.

  Had I more, I would have devoured it anyway.

  I flung the knife I held. As if that dream enfolded me, I watched the winking blade soar through the air, cut through fog and leave vapors in its wake. It found its mark with unerring precision, sinking to the hilt in the back of the Ripper’s thigh. He cursed long and loud, but he did not stop. He did not slow. What madness must have infected him to keep him moving, I could not know for sure.

  Given my own resin-saturated focus, I entertained an inkling.

  He looked behind him, eyes wild in a face I could pick out as strong-featured yet not wholly monstrous, and bared his teeth in vicious rage.

  The shadows combined around him, wrapped him in a cloak of animal savagery.

  Yet he did not turn on me. He darted behind a rail car, hobbled fast as he dared, and I lost him briefly in the swirling fog.

  Despite the brief flutter of fear that dreamlike sequence had given me, I would not give up this win.

  A sharp cry from my right lanced through the railyard, echoed by the faint whistle as the evening train approached from Wapping. I’d taken the reverse the last I’d been through here, chasing this same collector.

  This time, it would all end. My success would begin with the Ripper’s capitulation.

  I sprinted across three rail lines, tripped on the last and stumbled. Yet I caught myself without concern for the pain it created in my toes, or the barking my palms earned from the catching. As if the candle of it flared briefly and was snuffed, the opium took away all pain, eased all strain. I passed the corner of building, ducked under an overhang, and called, “Come out!” As if it might help.

  It didn’t. I didn’t wholly expect it to. Still, I found a clue easy enough as my clarity of lens picked a black smear from the side of the building I followed.

  Blood. Higher than a leg wound should allow. I touched it, found it cool but fresh.

  Had the Ripper hurt himself again?

  Bloody bells, had the collector seized him already?

  I found another stain, this one smeared as if he’d leaned. Not a terrible lot of blood, but enough to hurt, I’d wager.

  Setting my jaw, I spun in place, searching the shifting miasma for any clue. Where would I hide? Where would I run, if it were me?

  I’d go among people, wouldn’t I? But the nearest were too far out.

  The Ripper was thought to be innocent enough in appearance as to wander among the inhabitants of Whitechapel. He was thought to be a normal bloke, even rumored to be a toff. While I didn’t recognize the glimpses of his face that I’d seen, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t capable of acting the part.

  There’d be people waiting for the Wapping train, headed home after a long day’s work.

  That was it. That’s where I’d go. If I were him, I’d fit right in.

  And that was where I’d wager he’d go.

  I oriented myself quickly, found a sign and hurried across yard. The train’s whistle blew, echoing across the drift and making it seem much closer than it was.

  All so fundamentally familiar.

  As I hurried for the station, I stumbled to a jarring, addled halt. For a moment, too long of one, I could not recall where it was I stood. Was I searching for the Ripper, or for my abducted maid?

  Was the whistle I heard coming from a train or the bloody gramophone the sweet tooth had left to mimic the sound, making me look the fool?

  I dragged one hand over my eyes, plunging twisted fingers through my hair as if I might shove aside the confusion I fumbled through.

  I had not expected the Ripper to think of something other than his own skin.

  Forcing myself to stagger on. I passed a shallow alcove, where two buildings had begun to lean together. Conductor shacks, perhaps, or a place where the workman stored items of import. Whatever it was, I had thought them empty.

  Rough hands darted from withi
n, wrapped about my face and jerked me near off my feet.

  On instinct, I folded, earning his surprise, and jabbed my elbow into his gut. He grunted, but he did not let go. If anything, his grasp tightened over my face, crushing my goggles and respirator painfully tight, and fisted in the back of my coat. My hat tumbled.

  “Move and I gut you,” growled a voice that could have been pleasant, were it not for the murderous rage behind it.

  The dream collapsed. I knew without a doubt where I was—and who I hunted.

  I felt a pressure at my belly, and perhaps were I a simple dove, I might have been afraid. I was neither. He’d plucked my own blade from his leg, used it now against me. Sharp as it was, it would take more effort to slice through the thin slatting in my armor. A full thrust might do it.

  A flick would only embarrass him.

  I slammed my head back, yelping as my skull connected with his face. Jaw, I think. It felt like iron.

  The Ripper cursed, and I know he attempted a gutting, for I heard leather part—tearing to reveal the metal underneath. The sound the blade made as it caught against it shrieked through my senses, rippled all the way to my fingernails, even made my teeth ache.

  Yet I could not nurse it. I stumbled away, ears ringing.

  “Come ‘ere, you filthy bitch,” snarled the Ripper.

  My estimation of the man did not climb.

  Yet the fury in his spittle-flecked demand told me I would not get a second chance.

  I turned.

  Another hand grasped me by the coat, pulling hard enough that I stumbled back. “Now, now,” whispered the collector in my ear. “It’s no fun unless they run.”

  I again shot out an elbow, but he was gone, melding with shadow and fog. I turned, torn in focus, my concentration shattered, but he was wrong. The Ripper did not run.

  He came for me.

  Unarmed, I broke away from both, my goal a small bit of light painted nearly white under my lens. The bridge spanned the bulk of Whitechapel’s railyard, providing a way across for pedestrians coming to and from the station. There would be only two ways to come after me: front or behind. Much better than open ground.