Corpse & Crown

by Alisa Kwitney

  She asked the question silently, then repeated it out loud as she realized that she didn’t have to sit around being hungry and impatient. She could get up, go back to the Royal Victoria and find Lizzie and Aggie. Or else she could sneak into the cafeteria on her own and cadge a bit of supper.

  She grabbed Aggie’s spare shawl and draped it over her head so she looked like a new immigrant and then stood for a moment with her hand on the doorknob. Did she really dare to do this?

  She dared.

  * * *

  An hour and a half later, Justine was exhausted and, she had to admit, more than a little lost inside the hospital. She appeared to have wandered into the laundry, but she couldn’t recall if the dining hall was on the same floor or not. She was looking for a chair to collapse into so she could catch her breath when the big man in a porter’s uniform spotted her and gave a hoarse shout.

  “Nancy? Nancy!” He lurched forward and grabbed her around the waist. “Where the hell have you been, girl? We’ve been worried sick, Faygie and me.” He looked down at her, taking in Lizzie’s too-large second-best skirt and blouse.

  “Who is this?” Shiercliffe looked furiously back and forth from Justine to Bill. “What is this young woman doing here?”

  “She’s—she’s my sister,” said Bill.

  “I don’t know what game you’re playing,” said Shiercliffe, taking a small whistle out of her pocket. “But I do know that it ends here.” She blew on the whistle twice, producing twin, piercing shrieks.

  “Come on,” said Bill, grabbing Justine’s hand and tugging her out of the room. “Let’s scarper.”

  Justine shook her head. “I... I’m not sure...”

  “Are you daft, lass? We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Justine hesitated. Could she trust this stranger? Dipping into Bill’s thoughts, she saw a vivacious, dimpled girl with long, loose, thick hair that gleamed gold in the sun. Nancy. I hadn’t realized how lovely she was. In his mind, there were dozens of images of Nancy, some of her much younger, grinning at him with a gap in her front teeth. A more recent memory of her crying over him, and one that was startlingly sensual, her long hair gilded by firelight as she looked up at Bill as if he held the secrets to all the riddles in the world.

  Someday you’ll want me the way I want you, Bill. Only thing, with my luck, by then it’ll be too late.

  Bill. That was the big man’s name. In Nancy’s voice, it sounded like music. Justine was surprised to discover that he was only seventeen.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll go with you.”

  It was a moment too late. A porter arrived, short and bulky and balding, but carrying a large club. “What’s going on here?”

  Bill punched the man before he could react, then grabbed Justine’s hand and started running down the hall.

  Behind them, Shiercliffe’s whistle was blowing as she tried to summon more help.

  “Here, we’ll go out the side door,” said Bill, but as they turned a corner, they saw porters racing toward them. Spotting a staircase, Bill moved swiftly. Justine had never seen anyone race up a staircase, let alone felt herself yanked along for the ride. Gasping for breath, she stumbled as they got out on another floor—and ran straight into Dr. Grimbald.

  “Watch it!” Dr. Grimbald had spent much of his life in the military, and even though he was wearing surgical whites in place of a uniform, his voice still carried a commanding officer’s authority. “What do you mean by racing around? This is a hospital.”

  Bill looked as though he wanted to spit in Grimbald’s face. “The hell you say. This is a bloody horror show.”

  Suddenly, Justine saw Victor, coming up behind Grimbald. Recognizing Justine, his eyes widened. “Dr. Grimbald,” he said, “this man is abducting this girl.”

  Bill released Justine’s hand and bent in a fighter’s crouch to confront the two men. “Go on,” he growled. “Just you try it.”

  Grimbald moved in, and the two men started grappling. Grimbald was a trained soldier, used to the rifles and bayonets and the rules of combat. Bill was clearly used to dirty fighting in close quarters. In two moves, he had Grimbald hauled up against him, his arm braced against the surgeon’s throat in a chokehold. Eyes trained on Victor, he said, “I’d back off if I was you.”

  Victor retreated slowly.

  “Keep going.”

  “Listen, if you would just allow me to explain—”

  “You keep flapping your lips, I’ll snuff him.” Bill tightened his grip on Grimbald’s throat.

  Victor was silent.

  “Nancy, come around.”

  With an apologetic glance at Victor, Justine stepped closer to Bill. She didn’t know why she felt this urge to remain with him, but she couldn’t just let them arrest him when he had been trying to help her.

  Trying to help Nancy, she corrected herself.

  “Come on, Victor,” Grimbald was saying.

  Suddenly Victor stepped forward and pulled something out of his pocket—a hypodermic. With a quick strike, he had injected Bill before the larger man could react. Still holding onto Grimbald, Bill turned to Justine, his eyes wide with surprise.

  “Nancy,” he said. “I should never have let you go out alone.” Grimbald took advantage of the man’s momentary distraction to jab his elbow into Bill’s side, freeing himself.

  Justine watched Bill’s knees fold up as the morphine Victor had injected in his bloodstream took effect. He hit the floor hard.

  Justine tried to back away, but Grimbald stepped in front of her. “Mind telling me what all that was about, young woman?”

  Before she could stop him, Victor said, “That man mistook her for someone he knew.”

  Grimbald rubbed his neck. “And why was that? Was the man inebriated?”

  “I suppose he must have been,” said Victor, looking at Justine for a moment before his gaze slid away.

  But Justine had already figured out the chessboard, and she knew she needed to make a different move if she wanted to prevent Bill from being inducted into Her Majesty’s Bio-Mechanical army.

  “No,” she said. “He wasn’t drunk or crazy. He thought I was someone else because I’m in someone else’s body—but I’m Justine Makepiece.”

  34

  “Why so glum, Ags? If this doesn’t work out, you’ll be free of me.”

  Dodger was bare chested, lying on the hard wood of the surgical bed as Henry attached the rubber tubing to the bottle of concentrated ichor. The helmet of the galvanic magnetometer had been placed around Dodger’s head, since Henry maintained that the galvanic charge would amplify the effects of the transfusion. She had seen countless operations at this point, yet for the first time, her stomach was knotted with tension, while Dodger looked so cheerful she could have throttled him.

  Twist, who had gone morose, was sitting in a corner of the room, drinking a cup of tea that she suspected had been sweetened with something a good deal stronger than honey.

  “It’s not too late to change your mind,” she said.

  “Everyone always forgets the last line of the song, you know.”

  She frowned. “What song?”

  “Scarborough Fair.” He took her hand and she made a face.

  “Dodger, you shouldn’t touch me. Now I’ll need to wash again before the transfusion.” She tried to pull away, but he grasped her tight.

  “First, the singer sets his old love an impossible task, right? Sew a shirt without seams, wash it in a dry well.”

  “And she sets him the same. I know the song, Dodger.” She tried not to think too much about his hand on hers, his fingers lightly tracing over the lines of her palm. “My mam used to sing it. Two lovers who no longer trust each other—that was her favorite tune.”

  “Ah, but there’s that tricky last line,” said Dodger. “And endings change the meaning of everything t
hat goes before.”

  She was just about to ask him what he meant when Henry said, “Are we ready to proceed?”

  “Ready and waiting,” said Dodger, giving her fingers a squeeze before releasing them. “We need to get our Aggie back to her room before the witching hour.”

  Aggie decided not to tell him that it was already past midnight. Clerval, who had never been a particularly efficient student, had taken nearly three hours to prepare all his equipment and go over his notes. In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought. No point in leaving now.

  “Nurse, can you tie off the patient’s arm just below the elbow?”

  He’s promoted me along with himself, thought Aggie. “I just need to rewash my hands,” she said, moving toward the sink, but Henry just gave an impatient click of his tongue and said, “Never mind, I’ll do it myself.”

  As she washed her hands, she heard Henry chatting calmly to Dodger as he applied the tourniquet. In the past, she had watched doctors inject the ichor into a muscle in the arm or leg, but this procedure was clearly intended to introduce the concentrated serum directly into the patient’s bloodstream. By the time she was finished disinfecting her hands, she discovered that Henry had already attached the needle to the cannula and was about to inject it into the Basilic vein.

  “Henry, wait,” she said. “According to Shiercliffe, the median cubital vein is a better choice for transfusions.”

  “Don’t distract me.” Before she could say anything, Henry had plunged the needle in, causing Dodger to wince. She smiled at him reassuringly, then watched as the green fluid began to flow into his veins.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Right as rain,” said Dodger. “In fact, it feels quite marvelous.”

  The transfusion took much longer than Aggie had expected. She forced herself not to check her fob watch, worried that it would make Dodger nervous, and instead tried to distract him by reading from a newspaper she found on a chair. She’d amused Dodger with a lengthy description of how to avoid pickpockets until the bottle of ichor was empty, but then Henry insisted on giving Dodger a second pint, just to be on the safe side.

  She eyed the new batch of ichor, which looked to be a different shade than the previous one. “Isn’t there a danger of giving him too much?”

  “Two units is recommended,” said Henry in a condescending tone. “If you’re worried, ask the patient how he feels.”

  “Me?” Dodger grinned. “I’m ready to dance a mazurka, I am.”

  “What did I tell you?” Henry flipped a switch, turning on the Tesla coil. A fizzing, sizzling sound filled the room as arcs of blue electricity formed above the metal coils. “I’m going to apply the galvanic charge now,” said Henry. “You might experience a slight tingle in your extremities, which is absolutely normal.”

  Dodger gave Aggie a wink. “Nothing that might embarrass me in front of the lady, I hope?”

  “Nurse DeLacey is a professional.” Henry flipped the switch, and the helmet began to hum.

  “Oi, that’s what you call a tingle?” Dodger looked a little flushed, and his Bio-Mechanical eyes had begun to glow.

  Aggie glanced at the bottle of ichor, which was emptying rapidly. “Doctor,” she said, “should we slow the drip rate down a little?”

  “No need,” Henry assured her. “It’s all going swimmingly.”

  “Doc?” Dodger’s voice sounded a little less certain. “I feel as though I could—”

  His eyes rolled back in his head.

  “What’s happening?” She turned to Henry, who had gone white and was backing away.

  “I don’t—This wasn’t—I think it’s just a temporary reaction.”

  Dodger began to shake so violently that the table legs were clattering against the floor. For a terrible moment, Aggie’s mind refused to function. It was Twist who jolted her into action by jumping up and yelling, “Untie the tourniquet, woman! We need to get that needle out!”

  Her hands started to move of their own accord. “Hold him down,” she said, and Twist moved in, his breath reeking of whiskey. Within moments, she had the needle out, but Dodger continued to jerk and writhe, his eyes spinning unnaturally. “Get something between his teeth,” she told Twist, “so he doesn’t bite his tongue.”

  They managed to insert a tongue depressor into his clenched mouth, but as Dodger continued to shake and writhe, Aggie realized that every second that passed could be doing permanent damage to his mind.

  Henry Clerval was pressed against the wall, staring as though he had seen the devil. “Have you seen this before?” Aggie asked him, tamping down the panic she could feel rising inside her. “Is there an antidote?”

  Henry shook his head. “I’ve been tinkering a little with the formula...trying to improve it.”

  “Imbecile,” said Twist. Grasping Dodger’s shoulders, he said, “Come on, man. Shake it off. Come on back.”

  He loves Dodger, she realized. Or at least, Twist must have loved him once, and the embers of that feeling were flaring up now.

  Because Dodger was dying. The realization punched through her, rendering her momentarily stupid with pain. Then she thought of Shiercliffe, staring back at her with contempt, and pushed the feelings down and away. She had to act like a nurse now.

  “Mr. Twist?” No response. “Oliver?” He still didn’t look at her, his lank blond hair hanging down around his gaunt face as he held Dodger down, but she knew he was listening. “Can you hire us a carriage? We need to take Dodger back to the Royal Victoria.”

  * * *

  It took Twist ages to find a coach, and once they were inside, the vehicle moved with maddening slowness through the crowds of East Enders celebrating in the streets. Aggie lost all sense of time as she kept checking Dodger’s erratic pulse and encouraging him to breathe. By the time they reached Whitechapel Road, she was startled to see that the sun was rising. Then the bow bells of St. Mary’s chimed six times, confirming what she already knew—she’d been out all night.

  Aggie knew her career was over. There was no way her absence would not be noted, and no way she would not be penalized for it. She no longer cared. All that mattered was getting Dodger the help he needed, but as the hired carriage stopped moving, she realized that they had a problem.

  “The crowds are too thick for us to get right up to the hospital gates,” shouted the driver. “You’ll have to get out here.”

  As Twist paid the driver, Aggie tried to think of a way that the two of them would be able to carry Dodger between them. Dodger gave a low moan.

  “Dodger!” She placed her hand on his forehead, which was hot. His eyes fluttered but did not open. “Can you hear me?”

  He moaned again.

  “Easy, mate.” Twist opened the carriage door and slung Dodger’s hand over his neck.

  Dodger squinted at him as if he were drunk. “What happened?” The words came out thick and slushy.

  “You had a bad reaction,” said Aggie, slipping her arm around Dodger’s waist. “We’re taking you back to get help.”

  “Nuh,” said Dodger as they maneuvered him out of the carriage. “I’m fine.” The moment his feet hit the ground he stiffened, his face going blank as his eyes began to spin.

  The dark spectacles. She had forgotten to bring them. If anyone looked too closely, they would see instantly that he was something other than strictly human.

  “He’s having another fit,” she said to Twist.

  Twist scowled. “Damnation.”

  “We need to get through these crowds somehow,” said Aggie. “Pardon me,” she said to the people directly in front of her. “Medical emergency! We need to get this man into hospital.”

  “Sod off,” said a man with breath that stank of gin. “I’ve been waiting here for five hours to see the bloody exhibition. Not moving now it’s about to begin.”

  “It’s hopeless
,” said Aggie.

  “Not at all,” said Twist. “They want entertainment? I’ll give them entertainment.” Taking a deep breath, he shouted, “The Queen’s touch! The Queen’s touch! Make way for this poor soldier, injured in service to the Crown! Make way for a miracle!”

  When they were in sight of the front gates, the crowd was packed more densely and people grumbled and refused to move. Twist stepped up his sales pitch.

  “Who here will bear witness to a miracle? By the divine gift of English monarchs, we beseech the queen to touch this poor, afflicted soldier!”

  People began to move but not quickly enough. Desperate, Aggie chimed in. “As in the days of old, we ask for the gift of the royal touch!” Conducting the crowd like a choir, she began to chant, “Royal touch! Royal touch! Save the soldier with the royal touch!”

  “Good one,” said Twist, readjusting his grip on Dodger, who was stumbling along between them. “You’re a natural.”

  The crowd warmed to the chant, and soon the ringing sounds of thousands of voices could be heard, demanding that the queen perform a miracle laying on of hands.

  Supported between them, Dodger’s breathing was becoming more labored. Hang on, Aggie told him in her mind. We’re so close.

  Twist met her eyes, and she realized that he was coming down from whatever manic bit of hope and drive had been keeping him aloft. They were stuck out here, so close to the medical facilities that could help Dodger but incapable of making it any farther till the crowds dispersed.

  Dodger didn’t have that long.

  Leaning over him, she began to sing. “Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme...”

  He seemed to breathe a little easier, and then a huge roar came up from the crowd and she stood up, trying to figure out what was happening.

  The gates were opening.

  At first, Aggie thought that the school had listened to the crowd’s entreaties, but then, as she heard the clatter of hooves, she realized something else was happening.