Cold Stone and Ivy (64 page)

Without waiting for a response, she slipped her arm beneath his and began lifting the young physician to his feet. He was very heavy, for the water on the floor had soaked through his clothing, and it took several minutes before he was able to stand.

Light from the locket was flashing like a beacon, but now, with each pulse, the walls, floor, and ceiling stretched further inward. A piston from the dead engine had worked its way loose and flew across the room, disappearing with a flare into the centre of the locket. A bolt of chain followed suit. Ivy swallowed and began to move a little more quickly.

“It’s physics, Ivy,” Christien mumbled as they sloshed across the floor. “All physics.”

It was hard going, moving through the rising water and half-dragging a grown man on an injured ankle but she continued nonetheless. The floor, however, was beginning to bend and slide beneath their feet and she could feel colder water running up from cracks in the stone.

“The gold is from the antimony, the ghosts merely illusions from the radiation. We could all explode at any time, you know. Any time at all . . .”

He was delirious, she knew it. From the effects of the amputation, from the effects of the locket, from the possession of his father. She couldn’t tell which was worse, but she needed to get him out of this shrinking room and into the fresh air of morning.

It has to be morning,
she told herself. This night simply could not go on forever.

Finally, they made it to the base of the iron stair. It too was being pulled like taffy toward the pulsing of the locket. Already, the bolts that held it in place were shaking loose.

“Sebastien!” She had to shout to be heard over the roar. “Are you coming?”

“Soon, Miss Savage,” he called up from his position on the floor. He looked quite terrible, more skeleton than man, and it broke her heart to see him this way. He had been so robust back in Lasingstoke. “Once you are both safely up above.”

“But you are coming? There is nothing more to be done down here, surely!”

“Soon.”

She didn’t believe him.

“But if I don’t,” he called up as the waters rose up over the locket, causing steam to hiss and the water to boil in whirlpools all around his kneeling form. “You will take care of him, yes?”

She felt those tears, one last time. “I will do my best.”

He smiled, but it was a shadow of the sun.

She turned and dragged the insensate form of Christien Jeremie St. John de Lacey up the winding metal stair and into the first breaking light of dawn.

Of Mary Jane Kelly, Mushroom Clouds,
and a Conversation in an Eight-Wheeled Steamcar

THE STEAM TIMES
(London)

November 9, 1888

East End Doubly Shocked

The District of Whitechapel awoke to perhaps its most horrendous murder to date. Mary Jane Kelly, a woman of low occupation, was found brutally butchered in her common lodging house in Miller’s Court, Dorset Street. The atrocities committed against this poor woman have heretofore had no equal in the history of the city of London and she was found to be unrecognizable due to severe mutilations of her face and body. Police have asked for any witnesses to come forward at this time.

In an unrelated event, the engine-works house of St. Katharine’s docks, previously a marvel of Scottish engineering, collapsed this morning in a most shocking manner. Witnesses at the scene report shots being fired, flashing lights from the engine-works house, and finally, a strange mushroom cloud as the house collapsed in on itself, sinking both it and the adjoining locks to the bottom of the Thames. The basins themselves have drained into the river and all shipping has been suspended until the canal can be repaired.

While we have no reported casualties at the present time, due to the severity of the news on both fronts, the Lord Mayor has postponed his procession as a declaration of support for the people of Whitechapel and Wapping.

Police are continuing to investigate.

IT WAS RAINING
now, but the streets were still crowded with carriages, coaches, and pedestrians, and umbrellas bobbed along the walks like bumps on the back of a sea serpent. It was bleak, but she was tired and her imagination simply got the better of her at times like this.

She could see heads turn, however, as they drove past, and she watched them through the windows of an eight-wheeled steamcar. She had to admit, it was an amazing thing. Nearly twice as long as the four-wheeled variety, its chassis was wide and set low to the ground and the eight wheels hugged the cobblestones like rails. The ride was totally different, as most steamcars chugged and bounced their way through the streets, while this car’s powerful engine alternately purred and roared like a great cat. There was enough room in the cab for a host of passengers, but she was sharing the cab with only one.

Edward, Prince of Wales, sat like a regal bear, hands draped across the hilt of an ebony cane, looking every inch a monarch in waiting. And here he was, taking her in his luxurious steamcar to her little rowhouse in Stepney.

Yes, simply remarkable the things she was taking in stride.

He noticed her look, grinned beneath his great moustache.

“It will all be fine, little
Cymry.”
And he reached forward to pat her knee. His prosthetic was gloved, but she could hear the gears whining within. “We’ve got our own Sergeant-Surgeon on this, Sir Prescott Gardener Hewett, Baronet. Ahem. He will affix our Remy’s arm same as mine, my dear, just the same. Well, not completely the same, eh wot, given that the boy’s a leftwing! Ah ha! Ah ha!”

And he guffawed at his own joke.

“He’ll never be a surgeon again, true enough, but there’s a shit-load of surgeons in the Club. They won’t let him go to waste, no sir. Not someone as fine as our young Remy!”

She smiled weakly. “Thank you, sir.”

“Can’t say the same for old Sinjin, wot?” He shook his bear-like head and frowned. “Mum’s sent the papers for a clockwork heart. If the old bludger can hang on ’til we get it, then he’ll be right as rain. The Scourge of Lasingstoke will have a heart after all! Ha ha!”

Rupert had been as good as dead by the time she had pulled Christien out of the engine-works house. She had little hope for his survival. Then again, life was proving to be wondrous strange, and hope was a notorious thing to kill.

“He’s found himself a tough little wench, wot? French, is she? Madeleine? Marie Antoinette?”

“Marie Jeanette,” she corrected. “A cousin to some friends of mine up north.”

She’d read the papers this morning, seen the error in the reporting. She didn’t even know the poor girl’s name.

“Figured he’d pick a Frenchie, damn ’em all to hell. Sounds like a Mick to me, but still, she’s a pretty thing and if he’s happy with this one, then God be with ’em. Deserves some fun, old Sinjin does.”

“Indeed, sir.”

The steamcar purred around a sharp corner, sending water spraying across the pedestrians on the walk.

“Any word on Laury?”

She swallowed. “No, sir. Not yet, sir.”

He sat back, draped his hands across the hilt of the stick once again. “Not to worry, little
Cymry.
That boy has been dead more often than not. It just don’t stick.”

She stared out the window once again, remembering morning on the river, the skies low, dark, and red. There had been a crowd gathered on the docks, police as well, and as soon as she had handed Christien over, she had bolted back to the canal. The engine-works house was crumbling in on itself, light slicing through in beams from deep underground. The water of the lock, the basins, and the river was freezing and boiling at the same time. Ships along the quay were lifting with the ice and the red sky was alive with fireworks.

The gangwalk was gone, upended in the swell, leaving only a section of railing protruding from the quay, but even if it had been intact, she doubted she could have crossed. Hands had fallen onto her shoulders as a bobbie hauled her back. It was Constable Pleasant Poole, and he pulled her to the ground, covering her with his body as the engine-works house gave one last heave and fell into the lock, sending stones flying and leaving a massive pit in the earth as it went. Immediately, water had begun to surge in its wake.

A sound she would never forget—a boom louder than anything she had ever heard—sent a cloud of steam rushing up into the early morning sky. It was an oddly shaped cloud, almost like the shape of a mushroom, billowing in then out, hanging low in the sky for several moments, before finally dissipating over the docks in the form of cold rain.

She had pulled herself out from under the constable and had crawled to the edge of the quay. They were more like the white cliffs of Dover now and she had knelt to wait, watching for a sign of life from the water. Chunks of ice floated and steam bubbles hissed across the surface. At one point, she spied the head of the automaton partially trapped in a block of ice and she could have sworn she saw a flash of a massive golden gear reflecting the sunlight as it sank to the bottom of the lock. Finally, her eye was attracted to a very small something moving through the waters and she set her jaw. It was Ghostlight, quiet and as beautiful as a star. It bobbed a little as the current carried it through the ice and she kept her eye fixed until it was lost amid the floes and broken ships of the Thames.

Of the Mad Lord of Lasingstoke, there had been no sign.

“That’s why the Clubbers want him something terrible
,
” the Prince of Wales was saying. “They’d pull him inside out to find out what makes the boy tick. But he gives ’em a go for it, don’t he? Outfoxes ’em all! Ah ha! Ah ha!”

He reached forward to clap her knee once again. He had not remarked on her choice of clothing, the breeches and the corset, the boots and the bowler. He was the figurehead of the Royal Navy, after all. Surely, he had seen worse.

“Oh yes, little
Cymry,
he’s got more lives than a cat.
He’s always been a ruffian, that boy. Why, didn’t he give me old mum sass last month? She’s half a mind to toss him out a window herself! But he turns the girls’ heads, he does. Bloody shame he’s so strange . . .”

She had no idea how Edward had been notified so quickly. Perhaps it had been the police, perhaps the Ghost Club. They had been on their way to the Royal when the St. John Ambulance Corps carriage was diverted en route and taken to a private surgery off St. James’ Square near Buckingham. After that, it was a bit of a blur, for someone had slipped her some chloroform, and she had awoken several hours later, her wounds tended, her clothes mended, and with news of Christien’s imminent surgery.

She looked over at the Prince. “I have a question, sir, if I may . . .”

“Go ahead, little
Cymry
,” he said.

“The rings . . .”

He looked at her now and she could see the intelligence in his eyes. He did seem to try so desperately to hide it behind all his bluster, and she wondered if it was something they were trained to do as babes in the royal nursery.

“Christien, Dr. Williams, and the Duke had them,” she said. “I can’t help but think they had something to do with all this.”

Once again, she deliberately kept Mary Jane out of the conversation. As far as the city of London knew, Mary Jane Kelly was dead, murdered by the butcher of Whitechapel in her own bed. Somehow, it just seemed best to leave it that way.

“Damnation,” he muttered under his breath. “I’d forgotten your dad was a peeler.”

The steamcar purred around another corner and she recognized the neighbourhood now. They were passing the Tower on Hill Road, and he sighed, letting his eyes drift to the sights out the window.

“Having a child is a weighty thing, girl,” he said after a while. “You live like you have never lived before. You love like you have never loved, you pray like you have never prayed, and you weep like you have never wept. There is nothing like the disappointment of a child to cut you to the very quick, and sometimes, they are so much like you that it is painful to behold. Yes, parenthood is a very messy business . . .”

She waited patiently. There was little else to do.

“My son likes his pleasures far too much. In that, he is like me. I gave my folks a run for their money, by God I did. Me mum has never forgiven me to this day for breaking my own father’s heart. Ah yes, my Eddy does like his pleasures . . .”

He thumped the cane on the floor a little, and she wondered if it was nerves. It was hard to imagine the most powerful man in the world nervous in front of anyone, let alone a calamity like herself.

“What I mean to say,
Cymry
, is that my son likes his whores. By God he likes ’em. He has no discretion when it comes to his pleasures. It makes no difference to him age or class, looks, or even sex, if you believe the papers. He just can’t see that what he does matters, what he does has consequences, that he has been fated to live for something larger, better than himself . . .”

He removed the glove, tapped his clockwork elbow, and a cigarette slipped out into his hand. It had only been a matter of time, and she had to give him credit for lasting this long.