The Diabolical Miss Hyde Page 5

  Jemima scowls and gets back to work, patrolling the crowd for trade. But her eyes are exhausted, her face wan. This is her night job, after ten hours scrubbing piss-stinking linen in some moldy underground wash-house.

  Stupid compassion prickles my palms, and I wipe it off on my cherry skirts. Wild Johnny of Seven Dials is a catch, so he is, and a washer girl who sucks half a dozen cocks a night for sixpence apiece ain’t got much that’ll keep a man like him, if he gets another offer.

  Johnny once told me he’s a clergyman’s son, on account of which he speaks so nice and spits on the ground whenever he walks by a churchyard. Maybe it’s even true. When he was young, he went out with the swell mob, tall hat and cravat and his shock of midnight hair clipped short. But after a few seasons of fakement, the crushers get to know your face, and there ain’t no point twigging yerself out as quality when the bastards in blue just cooper your lay every damn time. So now, a wise old man of twenty-one, he fences the swag, and word is there’s nothing so dirty that Wild Johnny can’t christen it clean.

  Mayhap you’re thinking I’ve a soft spot for him? Well, so I do. Johnny and I go way back, since I first started coming here as an angry sixteen-year-old hellcat and he were only eleven, and if I’d met him back then the way he is now? Sweet Jesus, I’d have been his dolly before he could flash those witchy eyes and say how-d’you-like-it-darlin’? His face is fresh and sharp, not yet rotted by phosphorous or pox-scarred to hell. He still has good teeth, what’s left of ’em, and something about that mussed-on-milady’s-pillow hair of his puts me in a mind to stroke it. I’ve a woman’s heart, after all.

  But I ain’t playing that game, not tonight. I’m too old, too angry, too itchy inside with dark purpose to flirt with Johnny now.

  I choke down another cupful. Wretched stuff, gritty like the barkeep pissed gravel in it, but it suits my mood. “I’m looking for Billy the Bastard. You seen aught of him?”

  Johnny shrugs. His expression don’t change. His cock-eyed smile don’t slip. “What’s it worth to you?”

  I slide a pair of sovereigns his way along the bar. Johnny’s in no need of my coin. It’s just how business is done. The city’s too full of snouts, and a flash gent like Johnny has a reputation to protect. Put it about that he can be bought for less than he’s worth? His name’ll be back in the mud before morning.

  He makes the coins disappear, a swift shimmer of shadow, and scratches one oddly pointed ear. “I might have eyeballed the cove in question.”

  “And?”

  “It’s complicated, so it is.”

  “So?”

  His dark eyes dance. “So kiss me and I’ll tell you, sweet ruby Lizzie.”

  “Tell me and I’ll kiss you, you fairy-arse tosser.”

  “Promise?”

  “’Pon my honor.”

  He nods towards the pub’s rear door and flashes me that winning grin. “He’s out the back, playing loo. Now pay up.”

  “Complicated, is it?” I grin, too. “Johnny, you rakehell, will you deflower an innocent maiden with your tricks?”

  “So I talked it up. You still owe me.”

  I grab his coat lapels and plant one on him. His mouth is warm and bold, a man’s mouth, and his tongue tastes of gin and sorrow. Already his hands sneak around my waist, and his deft fingers are too long, strange, intriguing . . . but I draw back and pat his cheek affectionately. “Thanks, Johnny. You’re a darling.”

  He blinks his wonky eyes, starry. “Sweet Jesus, I think I’ve gone blind.”

  I laugh and walk away, smacking my lips. Eliza would be scandalized, but do I care? A good, hard, breathless lesson in scandal from a rascal like Johnny is just what that strait-laced madam needs.

  Me? What I need is none of your bloody concern. Just keep your mudlark mind on Billy the Bastard.

  I shoulder through the crowd, picking up my skirts to avoid puddles of gin and vomit and whatever else. Jemima Half-Cut’s sitting on some old bloke’s knee, his dirty hand down her bodice, and her glare follows me, green with poisoned envy.

  By the gin barrels, a toothless fortune-teller with a golden earring flips pornographic tarot cards for a penny, and a moth-eaten monkey in a tiny red waistcoat scuttles down his arm to collect the coins. A group of gin-swilling students raise a noisy toast, drinks splashing. “Hail to the King!”

  The King of Rats, that is. His Majesty of the fabled Rats’ Castle, lord of the fey underworld, duke of the downtrodden, prince of the perennially pissed-on.

  Like I says before: pish. Revolution has an ill and blood-soaked history in this country, especially lately. Ain’t no one gonna come riding in like King Arthur or Boadicea to avenge us. Not even some mythical rat bloke.

  I edge through to the back room, down a couple of steps to where the illicit card game is in full swing by lamplight. Seven men around a rickety table, swearing and swilling gin over a heap of coins, collateral, and crumpled banknotes. It’s a vicious game, loo, and fights break out more often than not. A whiskered dwarf in a green coat tosses his hand in, cursing in thick Irish, and beside him, an impossibly tall and thin cove with a hooked nose and a top hat hunches like a big insect on a stool and bets a fistful of silver half-crowns.

  But I don’t care a fig for them.

  Because the ill-favored gent on the far end is Billy Beane.

  Yes, it is. The Bastard, with his squashed hat, lice-ridden green coat, and skinny dog-whiskered face.

  Filthy son of a sewer rat. My shiny steel darling thrums warmly against my thigh. Soon, sister. Soon.

  I toss my cloak, revealing my bright skirts, and saunter in, hand on hip, twirling one curl on a saucy fingertip. I’m older than this scumbag’s usual dollies, but watch and learn, because Lizzie has her ways.

  I walk by Billy, trailing my hand over his shoulder. “I say, guvnor,” I purr, “ain’t you Billy Beane?”

  “Fuck off, tart,” growls the leprechaun.

  Billy plays a queen of hearts—he’s winning big tonight—and gives me the greasy eyeball. “What’s it to you?”

  “I heard you was a big man in these parts.” I lean over, showing him my swelling cleavage—Jesus cried a river, he don’t half stink—and slide my hand into his lap. A flick of my fingers and I’m in his trousers, and a dank and mossy place it is, too. Still, I’ve done worse. I fold my fingers around him, and it don’t take but a moment to get his attention. “Mmm. A very big man.”

  Billy’s gaze slides over the valley between my bosoms and back up to my face. He ain’t so drunk—nor so dumb—that he ain’t wondering what my game is. “You’re a bold one. Never seen you before.”

  I rub him, and give a tart’s sultry sigh of admiration. “But I seen you. You’s famous, so you is. I’ll do it for free. Always wanted to fuck a king.”

  The tall thin fellow next to him grins, rotten teeth gleaming, and tosses in his last card. “Your lucky night, Bill.”

  The Bastard trumps the trick—cheating, I’ll wager, cards up his sleeve or under the table—and the game is his. He laughs, uproarious, and drags the pile of loot in. “It’s my fucking lucky year, lads!”

  I smile and nibble his ear. Bite it, make him jerk and stiffen more. “What say we . . .” and I tells him a few choice tales about where he can put his business and what I’ll do with it once it’s there.

  Thin Man sniggers. “It’s got teats, Bill. Bit old for you, ain’t it?”

  “Nothin’ wrong with full-grown cunny,” says Billy loftily, “if it’s dressed right. ’Specially when it’s free.”

  Charming. Billy twists my hand loose, and soon we’re stumbling out into the pub yard, where it’s dark and stinking of old piss. I’m back against the yard wall, he’s fumbling my skirts up. His breath is slimy on my collarbone. My heart growls, the old rage spilling out. Enjoy it while you’re dreaming, arseface. I edge my hand up my thigh, to my garter where my pulse throbs eagerly against warm steel . . .

  He gets his hand on me and grimaces. “You got hair there. Turn around, bitc
h.”

  And he tries to flip me face to the wall. Huh. That’ll never do.

  Time to improvise. I wriggle around him and drop to my knees. “Let me suck it.”

  “Be quick, then.” He grabs my hair, drags my face in.

  I take hold of him. He smells goaty, unwashed, and my blood boils all over again, those little girls crying, his grunts, his brutish hands . . .

  I clamp my fist tight. Whip out my glinting silver sister, and jab the point into the sweaty crease beside his balls.

  His skinny body jerks. “Whatthefuck . . . ?”

  I squeeze tighter, yanking so it hurts, and grin my evillest grin. “Now, Billy Beane, let’s play us a little game.”

  Later, after I’m done with the Bastard, I’m flat on my back on a lumpy cushion in the Cockatrice, dizzy with gin and laudanum, gazing up at the eddying smoke. The crowd has thinned, men are passed out under the tables. Even the whores have drifted away, back to their cold penny lodging houses or the ratty beds of their fancy men.

  Wild Johnny lolls his elfin head in my lap, and by now he is plastered, having matched me gin for gin and more. He’s stripped off his coat—hot in here, or just the laudanum?—and inside his open shirt, his skin gleams, damp and luminous. He’s a sight, let me tell you, sinew and sweat and smoldering fey eyes.

  His hair spills over my cherry satin like India ink. I fondle it idly, watching with sparkly fascination as it curls around my fingers. My forehead feels tight, like there’s a lump on it. For some reason, I taste cherries. There’s blood under my nails, and a wet sticky patch soaking into my skirts, and my stiletto is snug back in my garter, humming contentedly, warm and sated for now.

  But I don’t have much longer. My stomach boils, and the elixir’s bitter taste repeats on me, stinging my mouth. My skin itches, like it don’t fit proper. My muscles ache with fatigue, and already my thoughts stumble, fantasy and reality crushing together like jagged mirror shards. Dreams of blood and shadow, the smooth kiss of steel, a scream. I don’t know if they’re real no more.

  I tip the near-empty bottle up into my palm, a brown trickle. Johnny licks laudanum from my fingers and groans, unrequited. “Be mine, Lizzie. Make an honest man of me. I can’t live this way.”

  My head spins. “Go home, Johnny. Jemima’s waiting for you.”

  He climbs me, fumbling, and rests his cheek on my chest. His starry gaze shines up at me. “Jemima’s not you.”

  My vision blurs, mixing darkness and light and his dusty scent of flowers. The world swirls, an underwater rainbow. I’m dirty, drunk, stained by rage and resentment and Billy’s horrid deeds, and my heart drums fiercely, mutinous, yearning for rebellion.

  Soon, I’ll have to go. I don’t want to. Not back to my chains.

  Slyly, Johnny eases his thigh across my skirt. I close my eyes, feel his rough cheek on mine, the catch in his breath when his long hand curls over the curve of my corset. He inhales, tasting my ear, my throat, and the laudanum should’ve dulled his desire but it hasn’t. I can feel him—he’s warm and insistent and wrong and I shouldn’t but I want to and my blood burns with the terrible urge to corrupt, defile, destroy.

  I don’t have long. I should go home. Disappear into my dungeon, let those rusty shackles snap tight. Hide from the truth, which is that I’m a bad woman and I’ll break this lonely boy’s heart for the simple pleasure of watching beauty bleed.

  But I don’t care. About me, about Eliza, about anything. Let ’em come. Let ’em torture me, strip me raw, bare my black-rotted soul to the sun.

  Johnny’s sweet mouth hovers over mine. He murmurs, lips drifting apart in easy invitation, and I bury my hands in his hair—such lovely hair, Johnny, you fairy-arse tosser—and the world shimmers into light.

  Darkness, the long empty echo of a wet Chelsea street. The artists’ quarter, lonely and bleak. A doorway looms, wooden steps twisting upwards inside. Cold winter shadows prowl and hunch like beasts. No moon shines. The midnight sky’s black with fog and dirt. Only my candle sheds light, a flickering halo of brightness in hell.

  I edge forward, my heart thudding hard.

  He’s here.

  I can taste it. Feel it in my fingertips like a long skein of wool unraveling, leading me to him. A bloodstain here, a fragment of cloth there. A smear of vermilion oil paint on a shirt; a telltale crimson hair, tangled in a dead woman’s fingers; the unique shape and depth of the loving slices he’s made in flesh. The homicidal artist whom the newspapers call Razor Jack has killed seventeen people that we know of. I should call for help. I should telegraph Inspector Griffin.

  Anything but keep walking into the dark.

  My shoes scrape on the threshold, unnervingly loud. My heart jumps like a frog into my mouth. I’m quivering, my candle’s flame shakes. My courage is lost. I want Lizzie, her bold laugh, her fearless banter, that confident toss of her head.

  But Lizzie’s not here. There’s only me, Eliza.

  I climb the spiral steps, creak, crack. Wind whistles, bringing the oily smell of paint and solvent. I reach the landing. My candle gutters. An artist’s attic boudoir, wide paned windows in the sloping roof. Palettes, brushes, pots of oil and pigments scattered on the floor amongst cushions and torn paper; silken drapes flung scarlet and blue over exposed rafters; a gilt-edged silvered mirror. Oil paintings stacked in the corners, propped against walls: Odysseus resisting the Sirens, triumphant Judith slitting Holofernes’s throat, a waif in gossamer skirts dancing en pointe in a pool of lustrous shadow that might be blood.

  His technique is startling, ferocious, the colors unbridled.

  A half-finished canvas sits on an easel. It’s drowning Ophelia, mad and beautiful, her pale hair drifting in cold black water.

  The back of my neck prickles, and I whirl.

  Glinting green eyes, wild-springing hair the color of blood.

  I stammer, my pulse sprinting. He holds no weapon. He doesn’t attack me. Doesn’t move.

  He just smiles eerily in the candlelight. “Hello, Eliza.” His voice is lilting, gentle. An educated man. He’s wearing black trousers, black waistcoat with four buttons in a square, white shirt with loose sleeves cuffed tight. That outrageous, indecently crimson hair springs over his collar, dances before his eyes. Too long, almost to his shoulders. He has a sharp-pointed nose, a delicate red mouth that makes me stare.

  He’s only a few years older than I. Harmless. A beautiful monster.

  I swallow, mouth dry. I was stupid to come here. But I—or was it Lizzie?—I had to see him for myself.

  The moment stretches.

  “I do apologize,” he offers at last. “We’ve not been properly introduced. Malachi Todd, yours truly.” He makes an elegant little bow.

  I dip my head shakily. “Indeed we have not, Mr. Todd. I believe we can be forgiven for dispensing with formalities.”

  “I won’t tell if you won’t.” He bends to light a glass-topped lamp, and the glow caresses him, velvety on his black waistcoat, warm in his eyes. “I feel I already know you, Eliza. May I call you Eliza?” He blows out the match and drifts closer to me. “You and your crafty shadow. You’re both so . . . tenacious.”

  I back off in a hurry. He follows, matching my steps, a strange dance. My candle falls, dies. He kicks it away. Deftly he grabs my wrist, his fingers warm and strong. I stumble. He catches me, his hand on my waist. My back hits the wall.

  And here we are, the talented Mr. Todd and I.

  I can’t help it. I’m breathing hard, my bodice is too tight, my pulse is on fire. I’m trembling.

  But he’s quite calm. “Ask me why.”

  “Please, I—”

  “That’s what you’ve come for, isn’t it? To dance with my shadow?” A bright flash, the spring of steel. And a glittering warm edge kisses my cheekbone. “So. Let’s begin. Ask me why.”

  It’s the spine of his razor. Smooth, not sharp. Not cutting me. He’s still holding my wrist, and slowly, he strokes my throbbing pulse with his thumb. A single, delicate search fo
r reaction.

  And he gets it, God help me. I lick dry lips. “Very well. The young lady in Mayfair. Why did you kill her?”

  Softly, he slices off a wisp of my hair. Watches it drift to my shoulder. “She was rude. Ignorant. She corrupted her beauty. She had to die. You understand, naturally.”

  “The man in Whitehall?”

  “Insufferable. Ugly manners. I can’t abide ugliness. You’re very pretty, Eliza.”

  “The art critic.”

  A sorrowful smile. “Ah. You have me there. Vanity, sadly, is my sin of torment. He called my Rape of Lucretia too lifelike.” He traces the razor’s blunt end along my collarbone, a hot-cold tingle. “There’s no such thing, you realize. Clearly, the man was deluded. I silenced him before he hurt someone.”

  “And the little girl? She was only six years old.”

  “That was an accident.” His fingers tighten on my wrist. His eyes flash darker, and my collarbone stings, a tiny shock. “These things happen. Shadow doesn’t always behave. As you well know.”

  Trickle. A single, burning drop of blood.

  His gaze follows it, lower, lower . . . until he catches it on the tip of his steel, just before it stains the edge of my bodice. “So where does your shadow go?” he whispers. “Late at night, while you’re sleeping? Of what does she dream? What forbidden pleasures does she taste?”

  My stomach clenches cold. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean—”

  “Oh, I think you do.” A secret smile. “You know what she longs for. You’ve felt it. Always swallowing clever words, hiding your true thoughts. Restless in your bed, frightened and alone in a crowd. Bumping against a stranger, wondering what it’d be like simply to . . . act. To do whatever you please.”

  Suddenly, I’m aware of how warm he is. How close. How human. “Sir . . .”

  “Tear off the veil. Strike the shackles. Live, instead of dying slowly, screaming into the silence. That’s true beauty. Nothing is forbidden to people like us.” He lifts the razor, my blood like a glittering ruby, and licks it.