The Bride Wore Black Leather (9 page)

He seemed almost to be in a trance. I looked at the Bride.

“Does he have the Sight?”

“I don’t know,” said the Bride. “Being Springheel Jack makes him more aware of the horrors of the world, but the state doesn’t exactly come with a user’s manual. If he says someone’s going to die, I’d put money on it . . . Jack. Jack!”

He looked at her blankly for a moment, then shuddered suddenly, as though someone had tripped over his grave.

“We need to get out of here, lover. Something bad is coming.”

“Then help me find the killer,” I said. “You can start by answering some questions.”

“Go ahead,” said the Bride.

“King of Skin spoke with you,” I said to Springheel Jack. “He said he knew what you really are. He also said he couldn’t be harmed by mortal weapons, and you said your razors were more than mortal.”

“That’s right,” said Springheel Jack. “They are. But you don’t stab someone with a cut-throat razor. I’ve seen the wound in his back; you’re looking for a large jagged-edged weapon. Doesn’t sound like a straight razor, does it?”

“I would quite certainly have smacked him round the head a few times for what he said,” said the Bride. “But he wasn’t worth it. King of Skin is part of the entertainment at these dos. We all turn up to see what he’ll say about other people. We expect him to have a go at us. It’s part of the game. You have to be able to take some, to hear some. Look, Jack and I both vouch for each other. We were together, when we heard King of Skin had been murdered. Haven’t left each other’s side since we got here. So we are each other’s alibi.”

“Yes,” I said. “But as a wise woman once said, ‘You would say that, wouldn’t you?’”

“I’m cold,” said Springheel Jack. “I’m so cold . . . It’s close, and it’s getting closer.”

His eyes had gone fey again. The Bride looked at him worriedly.

“Come with me, dear, and I’ll find you a nice large brandy to warm you up.”

She led him away, into the crowd. I looked at Hadleigh.

“Could you really have kept them in if they’d wanted out?” I said.

“Oh, I think so,” said Hadleigh. “Is it my turn now? I can’t vouch for my whereabouts as I have no idea where I was when King of Skin was murdered. I have no alibi. But you must know; I wouldn’t need a weapon to kill someone. Or I could have made him disappear. Sent him somewhere awful, to suffer for his many sins, and no-one would ever have known a thing about it.”

“Do you do that a lot?” I said, somewhat creeped out.

“When necessary,” said Hadleigh Oblivion.

“You’re really not helping your case,” I said. “What better way to hide your intent than a deliberately clumsy attack?”

“I have no weapons on me,” Hadleigh said easily. “I don’t feel the need for such things. Search me if you like. You won’t find anything. I guarantee it.”

But I was still thinking about the rose he had withered by breathing it in. And how King of Skin’s faces had withered away . . . “You knew about King of Skin’s other skins,” I said. “No-one else did. And he said he knew the price you paid, to gain access to the Deep School. What kind of price was that? What did you do, that you couldn’t tell your brothers? Did King of Skin know something that you couldn’t afford anyone else to know?”

“He knew nothing,” said Hadleigh. “The only people who know anything about the Deep School are those who’ve been there. And we never talk.”

I was getting ready to pursue the point when another great cry went up. A man, crying out in shock and horror. The immortals were already falling back, scattering like panicked birds, from something that had happened on the other side of the room. I forced my way through them, to find Springheel Jack kneeling by the still-and-lifeless body of the Bride. He was holding her in his arms, rocking her back and forth like a sleeping child, his face gaunt with horror and loss. The Bride’s eyes were wide open and staring. She looked like a broken doll. I could see a jagged wound in her side, soaked with blood. Jack looked at me.

“Why didn’t you listen to me? Why didn’t you let us go? None of this would have happened if you’d let us go!”

I looked quickly around. No-one had a knife or any other weapon in hand, and no-one looked particularly guilty. Most of them looked shocked, unable to believe that a second murder of an immortal could have happened in a place where they should have felt safe. I could see the same thought start to appear in several faces—the need to get out of this dangerous place.

“Everyone please move to the back of the ballroom!” I said loudly. “Back up to the door. Hadleigh is there; the Detective Inspectre. He’ll keep you safe. And, no, it couldn’t have been him because I was talking with him when the murder happened. Now move back, keep an eye on whom you’re with, and leave me to get on with the investigation. Shut up and move!”

They moved. I turned my back on them, to concentrate on Springheel Jack and the Bride. He was crying now, great racking sobs that shook his whole body. The Bride looked large and ungainly, the way she never had in life, her long body sprawled across the floor. I knelt beside her and checked her neck and wrist for a pulse, but there was nothing. I never thought there would be. I was going through the motions while my mind worked frantically. I looked at Springheel Jack.

“I’m sorry. She’s gone.”

“No,” he said, forcing the words out between sobs. “She can’t be gone. She was born from the dead, a triumph of the Baron’s skill. He put her together using the finest parts of a hundred women, that she should have all their strength. She was born of the lightning . . .”

He stopped abruptly, and his tears stopped, and his head came up as a great inspiration filled his face. He pushed the Bride’s body away from him and scrambled to his feet. The body slammed back against the floor, and he didn’t even notice in his excitement.

“Born of the lightning! Of course! You can’t kill the Bride of Frankenstein just by stabbing her! He made her better than that!”

He grabbed an ornamental lamp from the buffet table, and ripped the lamp free from its cable. Sparks sputtered from the ragged metal ends. Springheel Jack laughed breathlessly, grabbed the cable, and sank down beside the body of his Bride. He pressed the bare wires against her wounded side, and her whole body convulsed. He hit her with the electricity again, and the Bride sat bolt upright, drawing in a great ragged breath of air. Springheel Jack threw the sparking cable aside and held her in his arms, burying his face in her neck. She patted him absently with one oversized hand and looked dazedly around her.

“What the hell happened? And why does my side hurt?”

She looked down at the bloody wound in her side and swore briefly. She checked it out carefully with her fingertips, then sniffed loudly.

“Nasty business. But nothing that won’t heal itself. It’s already stopped bleeding . . . Jack. Jack, sweetie, it’s all right! I’m all right. I’m fine.”

They helped each other to their feet. Springheel Jack got hold of himself with an effort but wouldn’t let go of her.

“All right,” I said. “What happened here?”

Springheel Jack glared at me. “Someone tried to kill her! I warned you! I told you this was coming, but you wouldn’t listen!”

“Hush, dear,” the Bride said firmly. “No-one ever listens to prophecy; it’s the only reason the universe allows it.” She looked down at her side. “Someone stabbed me from behind. I never saw anyone. I’d seen that awful Lord Orlando heading towards me, so I moved off the other way. Next thing I know, there’s a great stabbing pain in my side, then I’m riding the lightning and I’m back again! Well done, Jack. Quick thinking. Usually I wake up in a morgue somewhere, giving some poor doctor a heart attack.” She smiled briefly. “Much as I hate to admit it, the Baron did good work. He made his creations to last.”

“You saw the Lord Orlando?” I said.

“Wasn’t him,” Mistress Mayhem said immediately. “He was right here, boring me rigid, when we both heard the scream.”

“Well really,” said the Lord Orlando.

Springheel Jack took the Bride away to one side for some mutual support and comfort. The immortals stuck together, on the far side of the room, looking at me with wide, frightened eyes. Expecting me to put everything right. Charlotte ap Owen hauled Dave the camera-man over to interview the Bride and Springheel Jack on their ordeal. Jack gave them one look, and they both ran for their lives. I spotted Bettie Divine over by the doorway, doing her best to vamp Hadleigh Oblivion, presumably to find out what he and I had been talking about. Brilliant Chang was hovering nearby, so I summoned him over with a jerk of the head.

“Any nearer spotting the killer?” he said bluntly.

“No,” I said. “I’ve questioned the most obvious suspects and got nowhere. They all seemed plausible enough . . . Any number of people had any number of motives for killing King of Skin, but I don’t have a weapon, and I can’t put anyone at the scene of the crime at the right time. No-one here saw anything. How is that possible?”

“Don’t look at me,” said Chang. “I’m a crime reporter, not Agatha Christie. You’re the detective.”

“I was never a detective! I was a private investigator, and I relied on my gift far more than most people ever realised. I always said I wouldn’t know a clue if I fell over one, and it’s starting to look like I was right.”

“Giving up?” said Chang.

“No. This is my last case as a private investigator, and I’m damned if I’m going to let it beat me. I need to think . . . Okay, wait a minute. Chang, have you heard anything about an immortality serum? Possibly for sale?”

“No,” said Chang. “Hasn’t even been a whisper, and it would be hard to keep news of something like that quiet.”

I nodded slowly. “Okay. Thanks. Go and rescue Hadleigh from Bettie, would you? I don’t want him distracted, in case someone tries to make a break for it.”

He laughed and wandered away on his mission of mercy. And I moved off among the packed immortals, hitting them all with the same questions, over and over again. Where were they when the murders happened? Who were they with? What did they see? Most had alibis, or said they did, and no-one had seen anything. Most of them were too shocked and upset even to think of giving me attitude, but a few still refused to talk to me, on principle. I let them get away with it. The more I thought about the killings, the more convinced I became that I was missing something.

I even questioned the waitresses in their French maid outfits, huddled together for security behind the buffet tables. But all they’d had eyes for was Dead Boy making a pig of himself. None of them had seen anyone near King of Skin. None of them had wanted to get anywhere near him. Which was understandable. One of them said she thought she’d seen the Lord Orlando somewhere at the buffet, not far from King of Skin, but couldn’t be sure when. That was enough to point me back in his direction. The Bride had said she’d seen him approaching her not long before she was attacked.

I did my best to question the Lord Orlando, and he did his best not to burst into tears at the very indignity of it all. Mistress Mayhem and another immortal called Polly Pariah insisted that he’d been boring their arses off right when Springheel Jack screamed, some distance away. I couldn’t see why either of them should lie.

I ended up back at the buffet table, chewing on a barely warm pig in a blanket, and thinking hard. If I had to point a finger at anyone, it would be Rogue, but why would he want to kill King of Skin? He didn’t know him; and given that this was the first time Rogue had ever been to the Ball of Forever, the odds were he didn’t know anyone. He came to make friends, or so he said. Though his family didn’t exactly have a good track record in that regard.

All right. Since I wasn’t getting anywhere with the suspects, maybe I could do better with the murder weapon. I couldn’t use my gift to find it without discovering something unique about it, something my gift could lock on to . . . But I did have something! With this second attack on the Bride, the weapon was the only thing common to both attacks, which meant I could find it! I raised my gift and concentrated, and immediately my head snapped round, to look down the length of the buffet table. I strode down it, following the tug of my instincts, until my gift brought me to a large open jug of dark red wine. The one I’d suspected was full of blood. It stood there, in the middle of a great many other bottles and jugs and flasks donated by various immortals, apparently innocent, looking no different than any of the others; but my gift was telling me otherwise. I leaned over the jug and studied its contents carefully. There was a definite dark shadow, deep in the dark red contents. I reached in, with a thumb and forefinger, gripped on to something hard and unyielding, and pulled it out.

I held it up before me. It took me a moment to realise what it was—a jagged-edged piece of mirror glass, dripping red wine. Not a knife after all, then, though the edges were certainly sharp enough to do real damage. In fact, the whole shard was so sharp everywhere, I was hard put to see how you could hold on to the thing without lacerating your own hand. And no-one in the room had shown any damaged hands . . . I jumped a little as I realised Bettie Divine was standing beside me, smiling brightly.

“I sensed you using your gift all the way across the room, so I came over to see what was happening. What is happening? What have you found?”

“You sensed . . .”

“Half demon, darling, remember? These horns aren’t just for show. Now be a dear and tell me what that is you’re holding! Is it important?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s the murder weapon,” I said.

Bettie squealed excitedly. “Wonderful! I knew you’d solve the case, sweetie! Never doubted you for a moment! Where was it?”

“In that jug of wine. That’s why both murders took place next to the buffet table. He smuggled the shard in easily enough, then dropped it surreptitiously into the jug . . . where it waited till he had a need for it. He took it out, stabbed his victim, then dropped it back in again. The wine would even wash the blood away though I think I can see traces of dried blood, trapped in the jagged edges . . .”

Bettie leaned in as close as she could get without actually touching the mirror shard with her nose. “Definitely part of a mirror, darling. But why make a weapon out of it? And what does it have to do with the way King of Skin . . . shrivelled up?”