The Diabolical Miss Hyde (7 page)

“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, bitch.”

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 for 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.

Tastes me. Just because he can.

My heart hammers. I want to squeeze my eyes shut, but I can't look away.

And I take a deep breath and bolt.

But Mr. Todd is too quick. His foot snakes around my ankle, tripping me. He grabs my flailing hand and pulls, our bodies collide, only this time it's he against the wall with me in his arms and he's warm and strong and his body feels . . . well, it
feels
, don't you see. I ache and I shiver and his eyes glitter with dark purpose, and for some reason . . . I can't escape.

I can't breathe. I can't think. Has he bewitched me? Maybe it's because his wild hair gleams like fire and he smells of absinthe and sorrow and forbidden sin.

Maybe it's just the razor at my breast, threatening to slice my bodice apart and gut me like a rabbit.

But the beat of his heart against mine is more dangerous than any sharpened steel edge. God help me, I'm terrified, but I'm fascinated, and I want to blame Lizzie but I can't.

Because Lizzie isn't here.

“Do I disgust you, Eliza?” His whisper is small, forlorn. Tragic. And the truth slashes horror into my soul.

Mr. Todd is lonely.

Oh, sweet Jesus.

I open my mouth to answer, but for once in my life, I can't think of a single thing to say.

He glides the razor's edge along the line of the bone in my bodice. It whispers through a layer of golden silk, effortless. No resistance at all. “Do I frighten you, perhaps? You're thinking, ‘What's the right answer? What can I say to convince this madman not to slice me up?'”

My voice withers, leaving only a dry whisper. “It . . . it had crossed my mind.”

A tiny laugh. “No. You understand me better than that. You and your shadow. Admit it. We're the same.”

A scream bubbles in my chest, and I choke it down. “You're wrong, Mr. Todd.”