The Diabolical Miss Hyde (10 page)

“And Lucy here? Is this necessary?” On the wall, a square metal frame was bolted, and from it hung a woman, shackled at wrist and ankle. Thin, but once her figure must have been shapely. Her smock was splashed with blood, and knotted dark hair fell over her face. Her fingernails were torn to the quicks. She didn't struggle or cry out. Just stared, blood dribbling down her chin.

“Necessary, as well as efficacious,” reminded Fairfax. “This is not a prison, madam, but a hospital. We'll have none of Mrs. Fry's so-called reforms here. We do what works. A simple system of cause and effect. Action provokes reward, for good or ill. Wouldn't you agree, nurse?”

The nurse shrugged. “This one's been biting again. It's either this or solitary, and the cells is all occupied. Full moon in a few days. Drives 'em even more batty than they is already.”

Eliza cleared her throat, self-conscious. Lucy was one of the patients on whom she'd tested Mr. Finch's remedy.
Lux ex tenebris.
She'd tried it only once. This bloodthirsty thing that burst out . . .

Fairfax lifted Lucy's chin with one finger. “Peace, my dear. You don't want the ice bath again, do you?”

“No.” Lucy's voice was hoarse. Her gleaming eyes rolled, and she arched her body, lascivious. “Not the ice, sir. Please, I want to be warm and full inside. I don't care if it hurts. I'm starving in here. I need to
feed
. . .” She chewed her lip, drawing blood, which she swallowed with a lustful groan. At some stage, she'd filed her teeth to sharp points, and they glistened red.

Fairfax leaned in, an inch from Lucy's face. “No feeding, Miss Lucy. Not until you're pleasant to the other ladies. Then you can have a nice hot cup of blood. Would you like that?”

“Oh, yes, I'll be good, sir. I promise. So long as you let me drink from the nice one.” Lucy writhed, passionate. “I want the nice one. He smells
goood
. Like an animal.” She growled and snapped at Fairfax, missing his nose by a whisker.

Fairfax didn't flinch. “Nurse, put something between this woman's jaws before she hurts herself.” And he walked away.

Eliza scuttled alongside. “Whom does she mean: ‘the nice one'?”

Fairfax wiped reddish spittle from his face with a handkerchief. “Ah,” he said lightly. “The bloodthirsty Miss Lucy has designs on young Mr. Sinclair. One of our keepers, a student of mine. It's quite harmless.”

“I'm sure.” Eliza stifled a smile. The nice one, indeed. She knew Mr. Sinclair. He was young, shy, good-looking. A kindly fellow who went out of his way to treat the inmates well. A lamb to Lucy's lion.

“But do you see? An incorrigible such as Lucy lets her compulsions rule her. Lack of will, Dr. Jekyll. Why would any of them
want
to be cured? If they remain mad, they don't have to face their sad little lives.”

Eliza's arm tightened around her bundle. Her own treatment was based on Mr. Finch's theory of the shadow self, the darkness within—and her own desperate experience. Either you suppressed the shadow or you encouraged it. There was no middle ground. But who was to say which was “normal”?

Fairfax tugged her away. “I've no patience with shirkers. I intend to treat these unfortunate wretches, whether they like it or not. I shall defeat madness, whatever it takes.” A shadow flitted across his face, the ghost of long-suffered grief, but it quickly disappeared. “Come along, you really must see this.”

“And . . . er, what does your new regime involve?”

Through another barred gate, turning left towards the rear wing of the asylum, along a narrow brick corridor that stank sourly with vomit and fear. “It's comprehensive,” explained Fairfax. “Electroshock, naturally. Hydrotherapy. Hypnosis. Extreme sensory control. Hot and cold, dark and light, noise and silence. All experimental.”

Sinister electric lights flickered in wire cages. A barred gate loomed from the dark, guarded by a pair of heavyset warders, and beyond it, creeping silence. Broken only by lonely moans, and the wind, whistling mournfully through slitted windows.

The solitary wing. Killers. Cannibals. Bloodthirsty maniacs.

Eliza shivered, chilled yet burning, and the dank walls closed in. She was a trained physician. Madmen held no terror for her. So why was she filled with dread?

From the dark corridor came the sounds of a scuffle. Heavy footsteps, panting, the crash of furniture, a rough curse and a choking groan, as if a man had been punched in the stomach.

The tattooed warder with the shaven head nodded gruffly. Fairfax unlocked the gate with a key from his own iron ring. “After you, madam.”

The scuffle grew closer. Eliza swallowed, and Fairfax waited, expectant. “The design is radical. Are you certain you wouldn't care to observe? I promise you'll find it educational.”

She managed a weak smile. “You're very kind, but I'm already behind schedule. I really must—”

“Pity,” said Fairfax blandly. “I imagined you'd be most interested in my first test patient's prognosis.”

And a tall figure hurtled through the gate and slammed face-first into the wall, six inches from her nose.

She jumped back, heart thudding.

Wild crimson hair, the exact shade of the blood dripping from his nose. Black waistcoat, arms in dirty white sleeves shackled behind him with rusted iron at wrist and elbow. The warder jammed a crackling electric hoop stick around the man's neck, pinning him to the wall at a safe distance. The lunatic laughed and wriggled like a netted fish, earning himself a punch in the small of the back that knocked his breath away.

Every nerve screamed at Eliza to flee. But the narrow corridor left her nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

Malachi Todd grinned at her, green eyes sparkling with mischief. “Hello, Eliza,” he panted. “Always we meet in such a crowd. Surely we no longer need a chaperone?”

G
OOD MORNING, MR. TODD.” SOMEHOW, SHE KEPT
her voice strong. “Um . . . I trust you're well?”

“Oh, I'm capital. Most excellent.” Todd licked blood from his mouth and smacked his lips. “I say, this is a first-rate establishment you've locked me up in. Very educational. I'm quite the new man.”

“I'm pleased to hear it,” she said faintly. He was even thinner than she remembered, his cheekbones hollow. His chin was colored with a few days of crimson beard—so improperly red, Mr. Todd's hair, ragged now in long knotted locks—and distantly she wondered who on earth dared to shave this man, and with what.

“You're keeping fine company, as ever,” said Todd carelessly, his cheek still jammed against the wall. “Come to spark some life into me, Fairfax? Squirt me full of idiot juice? Or is it the ice bath today? I do so look forward to our little pain parties—”

“Shut it, dimwit,” growled the warder, his thumb hovering over the button, and blue static arced in tiny forks in Todd's hair.

Todd's eyes glinted. “By all means, give me an excuse. Your face would make a charming lampshade.”

“Now, Mr. Todd, keep it civil, please.” William Sinclair bustled from the dark cellblock. Mr. Todd's keeper, he of Miss Lucy's sanguinary affections. Young face, dirty blond hair, a spot of blood staining his beard. He wore a smeared linen apron over shirtsleeves, and under one arm he carried a contraption of stiff canvas, trimmed with leather buckles and straps.

“Beefy Mr. Sykes here has a nervous disposition, you know that,” added Sinclair. “Don't provoke him, or I'll have to take your books away again.”

“Kind of you, William,” remarked Todd. “Politely put. Manners appear to be in short supply this morning.”

“Nervous, my arse,” growled bristle-headed Sykes, and jabbed the electric stick in harder.

Fairfax waved Sykes back. “Enough. I don't want residual effects spoiling my treatment. Bring him to my new laboratory, Mr. Sinclair. Full restraints.” And Fairfax marched away.

“Your funeral,” Sykes grunted, and lumbered off, his glittering hoop stick fading into the dark.

Todd straightened, wriggling his filthy clothes back into place. He popped his neck, a crackle of stiff joints. Not easy, with his elbows pinned behind him. “Alone at last. How are you, Eliza? You and your shadow?”

His knowing gaze made her flinch. Mr. Todd wasn't fey, so far as she knew. Just very strange. “I'm sure I don't know what you mean—”

“Oh, never mind William,” said Todd airily. “We can talk in front of him. He'll not speak a word of it. Too many wicked
secrets of his own, you see. Closet hip-deep in skeletons. Shocking.”

Will Sinclair smiled apologetically, his tea-brown eyes tired but bright. His cheekbone sported a yellow bruise, the relic of some scuffle. “He says that about everyone.”

“He's secretly in love with me, you know,” Todd confided. “It's embarrassing, the way he shuffles and stammers. I've told you before, William, I'm not your type.”

“Woe! How ever shall I survive my broken heart?” A faint blush stained Will's cheeks. “If I take my eyes off you, will you run away again, Mr. Todd? Or must Dr. Jekyll and I tie you down to win a few moments of civilized conversation?”

“Now there's a diverting prospect.” Todd tossed his wild red hair and grinned, feral. “By all means, you amorous beast. Civilize away.”

“Thank you.” Will made a little bow in her direction. “Hello, Doctor. Not often we see you in these parts.”

“A habit I'd have preferred to keep,” she said briskly. “I missed you at the most recent Sydenham symposium, Will. A demonstration of a pneumatic levitator. Only in prototype, of course, but it was amazing. Mr. Paxton proposes to build a railway across the Thames using this very idea. Imagine that.”

Will's young face fell. “But it sounds wonderful. I'm sorry I missed it. I meant to go, but Sir Jedediah insisted. My surgery studies, you know.”

Todd giggled. “Molding you into a little Fairfax, is he? What a revolting idea.”

“No apology necessary, Will,” said Eliza, ignoring Todd. “Next time, I'm sure.”

“Definitely. One must endeavor to improve oneself in every possible way.”

“I quite agree.”

“I'm glad.” Will fidgeted, rolling the canvas jacket in two hands. “Perhaps . . . you and I could attend together? If you're not too busy, that is.”

She flushed. “Oh. Well. Ah . . . certainly. I'd be delighted.”

Will beamed. He was only twenty-one, and his beard didn't make him look any older. “Excellent. Galvanism this time, isn't it?”

“I believe so. Animal electricity and its effects on the human form. It's highly anticipated.”

“Oh, well done, Eliza,” murmured Todd, an impish glint in his eyes that disturbed her. The symposium was merely a shared professional interest. And she liked Will. He was kindly and clever. But suddenly, she wished she could take it back.

Will hefted the buckled jacket. “Now, Mr. Todd, will you play nicely while we put this on?”

“Of course, old bean,” said Todd. “So long as Eliza answers my question. Otherwise, I declare, I shall wail and kick and gnash my teeth, and our nervously disposed Mr. Sykes will come lumbering in with his whip and there'll be all that tedious messing about with bridles and thumbscrews. And who'll have to wipe up the blood? Not I, William, I can promise you that. I'm quite mad, don't you know. They don't trust me with mops and buckets—”

“Lest we be here all day,” Eliza interrupted, the image of his elegant hands bleeding in metal clamps wriggling in her
stomach like a snake, “I assure you, Mr. Todd, I'm perfectly well.”

“And your shadow?” he murmured, intent. “I think she's troubling you. I read this morning's press. A most delicious revenge
tableau
.”

Her throat corked, dry. How on earth did Todd know about Lizzie and Billy Beane?

“The ballerina, I mean,” he added, watching her squirm. “I expect that's the theory your tragic Inspector Griffin is spouting. ‘Revenge, sir! Vile enemies! Feuding families, ahoy!' Stupidly clever of him, I'm sure. Are you quite all right, Eliza? Your pretty cheeks are rather pale—”

“What do you mean,” she cut in, “stupidly clever?”

Innocently, Todd lounged against the wall. “Oh, never mind me. I do claim a certain affinity with these matters. But I'm sure it's nothing . . .”

Mentally, she smacked herself. Classic lunatic behavior. Attention-seeking, self-aggrandizement. She should know better than to take his bait . . . “Explain, if you please.”

An idle shrug. “It's all there in the reports. I'd hoped you of all people would read the signs. Your budding artist isn't angry or vengeful. Heavens, no. He's hopelessly in love.”

“What?” Her senses eclipsed, and she fought to stand straight.
Whispers in her hair, the warm kiss of steel: let me show you . . .

Will touched her elbow. “Come now, enough. No need to discuss such vulgarities.”

“It's desperately romantic, Eliza,” murmured Todd, “if not particularly elegant. His passion consumes his reason, and it's still hungry. If you don't soon find another . . . love letter
scribbled in blood, shall we say . . . I, for one, should be all astonishment.”

That's what you've come for, isn't it?
A cold specter drifted from her memory.
To dance with my shadow?

Will cleared his throat. “Thank you, Mr. Todd. As ever, your peculiar wisdom astounds. Now, I'm sorry to say Mr. Fairfax awaits—”

“Dr. Jekyll!” Bootsteps echoed smartly along the corridor. A determined, military stride.

With a sinking heart, Eliza turned.

“Dr. Jekyll, my dear fellow.” Captain Lafayette of the Royal grinned at her. He'd freshened up since she'd glimpsed him that morning in Seven Dials. Clean-shaven, hat tucked under his arm, his coat a blaze of scarlet in the dank corridor. “Lady, that is. I'm so glad I found you. You must come at once . . . good God.” He inhaled with a grimace. “This place stinks like a zoo.”