The Dickens Mirror (20 page)

“Why you want to know?” His voice was brutal and hard as Kramer’s eyes. “Ya fancy one?”

“No, but I like to understand what manner of man you are, just how far you’re willing to go. Very far indeed, it seems. Splendid.” Returning his attention to Doyle’s arm, Kramer ran the pad of a thumb over that petrified vein. “Are you injecting between your toes? Or under your tongue?”

“No.” Try as he might, he couldn’t stop the tremble of a tear that welled over his lashes to wet his left cheek. “Why you doing this? Ya want me to grovel, beg? I never asked you for nothing.”

“But you’re willing to take. Unless you wish to walk out of here with only stitches, and an unfortunate desire to soil your trousers. Or you could tell Battle. It would be my word against yours.”

“And
stupid
,” Doyle spat. “Battle’ll want to know why you bothered. I’d be cutting my own throat. There’s no way to win this.”

Unless you refuse to play
. Black Dog had been silent so long he almost started.
There are deals to be made with worse
than the devil you know, far more ruinous than you can imagine
.

Really? Oh believe you me, I can imagine quite a lot
. He had, after all, been fourteen once and bearer of a secret that even now burned his brain like the vengeful eye of a lunatic god.

HE LISTENED, CAREFULLY
, as Kramer told him what he wanted. When the doctor was done, he only stared a moment, then said, “You’re mad.” He glanced over at the girl, but Meme’s face was a fixed and steady neutral. He looked back to Kramer. “Steal
evidence
? I can’t do that. I don’t know where they even are. No one does.”

“But you could find out. Then you bring them here,” Kramer said.

“But why? What good are they to you?”

“Playing the detective? It don’t suit. You’re no bricky boy, Doyle.” Kramer leaned so close Doyle could smell the sour tang of horehound on his breath. “You’re a meater, a coward, and weak. Now, you want what you want, and so do I.”

“If I’m caught, I’m sacked, on the street.” He wanted to add that he was dead, because there would be no more money and, therefore, no more morphia or cocaine or opium. He could barter food for more drugs, but one way or the other, it would all catch up with him. He couldn’t live
on
drugs, and he couldn’t live without them.

“Then don’t get caught. A shame that only a few years ago, this would all be quite legal. You seem quite resourceful, Doyle. You’ve managed this long with your little … habit?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask again:
Why
, why
this? What you want something like them for? What’s so important about them?

Want is want
. At the end of the syringe, a golden drop swelled. For an insane moment, Doyle yearned to take that honey-colored drop on his tongue the way a lover catches the tear of a beloved. The color was very different from what he’d expected, but who bloody cared? Kramer needed him, and this was payment.

“Here.” The tourniquet, a Petit’s, was one with which he was familiar, but you were talking about someone who’d have jerry-rigged a rat’s tail to plump up a vein if needed. As Meme came forward to help, Doyle stopped her with a look. “No,” he said. “You shouldn’t be made to do this.”

“I do not mind, Constable,” Meme said. “I want to help.”

No one can help me
. He wouldn’t let her sully herself over the likes of him either. “Thank you, no.” Turning aside, he used the bloody fingers of his right hand and then his teeth to fix the tourniquet’s canvas strap through the steel buckle. He tightened the winged brass screw, then pumped the fingers of his left hand.
Ahhh, there you are
. A fat blue vein wormed at the base of his thumb and crawled over his wrist.

“That’s a good one.” He thrust his arm at Kramer. “Hasn’t failed yet. I try to rotate and rest it because …” He stopped talking. What an idiot, going on like a couple of boy apprentices comparing notes on which brick ought to go where.
I’m a person. I must count for something
. But he couldn’t think what.

Then don’t do this, poppet
. Black Dog, again.
Walk away
.

“Ah.” Kramer’s ravaged mouth parted in a surprisingly boyish grin that made him look only half a monster. “You know
what we call that? The intern’s vein, because any fool can hit it.”

And which of us is more the fool now?
Doyle honestly couldn’t tell if that was his thought, or Black Dog’s. It probably didn’t matter.

“Shut up.” Doyle closed his eyes, mostly because he couldn’t bear to see the pity in the girl’s eyes turn to disgust. “Just get on with it, can’t you?”

IT WAS NOT
what he expected.

For a few, long moments after Kramer depressed the plunger and he felt the cold thread of liquid stream into his vein, nothing happened. Kramer was silent, though his gaze, bright as a raven’s, scraped over Doyle’s face.
Studying me
. Then, a more horrible thought:
As if I’m a specimen
. He had to throttle back a scream. Black Dog was right. Kramer was using him for some mad experiment …

And then the drugs hit.
Oh God
. A warm and liquid rush filled his chest and ballooned in his head.
God, this is good, so gooood
. He heard himself sigh.

“Better?” Kramer’s voice sounded far away.

“Yes.” That was true enough, but at the same time—Doyle swallowed against an odd taste on his tongue—something wasn’t quite right.

Normally, his mind went a little fuzzy, quite quickly, as the drug, carried in his blood, swirled through and around his brain. Now, he was comfortable, but only just. Teetering on the brink was more like.

“What’s in this?” He watched Kramer dismantling his syringe. “This isn’t … 
ahhh!
” A sudden icy fist slammed his chest. His
head snapped so violently he heard the crack of tendons and bone in his neck.

Distantly, he heard Meme: “Doctor?” And then Kramer: “Leave him. It will pass.” Evidently, she didn’t listen, because the next thing he felt were her hands on his cheeks. Her face swam out of a red haze. “Constable,” Meme said, “what is happening?”

“Hurts.”
The word rode a hiss through clenched teeth. “Not
right
. Not supposed to … Oh
God
.” Another blistering shudder, and he plugged his mouth with a fist to keep back the scream.

“Doctor.” Meme turned a pleading look. “
Help
him.”

“This will run its course,” Kramer said. Then, more sharply: “What the devil do you think you’re doing?”

“I know you must have an antidote.” Through a fog of pain, Doyle saw that the girl was hastily rummaging through Kramer’s phials. Selecting one, she held it out. “This reverses the effects of morphia, does it not?” When Kramer didn’t reply, she said, “Doctor,
please
. I have never defied you, but—”

“Then do not begin now.” Kramer’s voice shook with rage. Extending a hand, he snapped his fingers. “Give me that.” When she made no move, he said, “Do
not
overstep. You are my creature, girl. I made you, and I can just as easily—”

“N-no, l-leave her out of this.” He couldn’t let her risk her position.
He’ll turn her out to die on the streets
. Doyle pressed a fist to his chest. “S-sometimes, it happens.”

“I do not understand,” Meme said to Kramer. “The lies, what you told Battle, and now—”

“I said
give
me the
phial
!” Kramer’s hand flashed. The blow caught Meme just below her left eye. Staggering, she let out a sharp cry. Cursing, Kramer wrenched the bottle from her fingers. “How
dare
you defy me!”

“N-no!”
Panting, Doyle struggled to his feet, but he was off-balance. Swaying, he clutched at the tea cart. Cups and china saucers slithered to the floor in a bony smash. Trembling, he latched onto a wingback to keep from falling. “Don’t
h-hurt
 …”

“Remember, you are
my
creature.” Kramer shook the girl violently enough for her head to snap on the thin stalk of her neck. “You serve at
my
pleasure. Do you hear?”

“Damn you,
leave
her!” Doyle’s arms shuddered under the strain of his weight.
When I’m past this, wring your neck, tear your head …

Patience, poppet
. A snarl in his left ear.
There is a time and place. This is not it. Choose your battles. You gain nothing by playing the white knight here
.

“Yes, Doctor.” Except for the fist-sized splotch under her eye, Meme’s face was pale as porcelain. “I apologize. It is only that you taught me to do no harm and yet—”

“And I’ve done none. It is a serum of my own making, and believe me, I have no wish to harm the good constable.” Cutting her off with a tone as cold as the slush passing for Doyle’s blood, Kramer thrust her aside. “You, Doyle, sit down before you break anything else. I wouldn’t poison you. How would I explain that to Battle? Oh, so sorry, your constable dropped dead whilst I was stitching his arm?” He tossed the syringe’s needle and tube in a basin of carbolic acid. “I’ve remedied the constable’s physical symptoms and the worst of that craving. It’s passing even now, isn’t it, Doyle?”

It was true. His heart was only racing, not trying to blast out of his chest. “Yes.” He knuckled sweat from his forehead. “But what’s in it? I’ve a right to know.”

“A
right
?” The half-mask rode up a little as Kramer arched his
good right eyebrow. “I told you. It’s a combination of morphia with a touch of seven-percent—and a little something extra for clarity and to scrub your mind clean.”

“Clarity?”
Something extra? Wash his mind until he was, what, a blank slate?
Meme had drifted closer. Her hand brushed his back: a gentle touch, but it helped center him. Why was she being so kind? “Whatcha mean?” he asked Kramer. “You’re talking riddles. I’m a person, not a piece of parchment.”

Poppet
. Black Dog, at his ear.
Think of the girl. Don’t give him an excuse to take it out on her
.

Black Dog was right. “I’m sorry.” He straightened enough that the girl’s hand fell away.
Be strong. Think of her
. “You caught me by surprise. I’ve only had that happen once before, when what I got wasn’t … pure.”

“Oh, my cocktail’s pure, but you wouldn’t understand the chemistry behind it.” Kramer nested the dismantled syringe back into purple velvet and closed the morocco case with a decisive snap. “Bring me what I want, and I assure you: if you wish, you may spend the rest of your life in an opium fog.”

HERE WAS THE
surprise: then, wreathed in the scent of lemons—and later, when he’d rejoined Battle in the asylum’s vestibule and turned to find the girl watching him from the top of the asylum’s wide marble staircase—Doyle wasn’t sure he wanted that at all.

The Other Side of the Screen

“BOY!” THE CALL
came from the asylum’s vestibule. Half run off his feet, darting between the men’s ward on second and the women’s ward on first, Bode threw a glance down to find Battle, elbows akimbo, steel-gray bowler tipped back. “Could you see what’s keeping my constable?” Battle called. “Haven’t got all bloody night, you know.”

“Yes, sir.” Balls to that.
Not paid to be your errand boy
. “Right away.”

Except it wasn’t right away, because that quake hit, and he was a good long time putting patients back to rights before he remembered the inspector.
God
. Bode hurried for Kramer’s office.
Probably already done with the constable
. But if word got back he’d not relayed Battle’s message … he didn’t need any more drama.

Kramer’s door was ajar; the room, empty. A wool overcoat hung from a coat tree, along with a bloodstained jacket and vest. (Kramer was a prig, but all doctors worked in formal attire, dressed to the nines.) From the light of an oil lamp and what filtered in from the window, he could see that used instruments
were still strewn atop a wood stand, though some had clattered to the floor; a curl of black thread looped through a needle’s eye; and there was a basin half-filled with murky liquid, the remainder of which had slopped to the carpet.

He should’ve left right then and there. No Doyle meant that the constable was probably on his way back to the inspector at this moment. Besides, Tony and Rima would be here soon, and he had to make sure they got what victuals he’d squirreled away and none the wiser.

Yet he was curious. Something untoward had happened here. His eyes strayed over smashed crockery on the floor, an overturned cup. The quake? Probably, quite possibly, but still he couldn’t shake the sense that there was a touch too much disarray.

Then his eyes fixed on the cart and those biscuits and that plate of sliced lemon and a whole one besides, all
begging
for a home—and he felt a talon tug his gut.

Walk away
. Spit pooled under his tongue. A fast look over either shoulder showed him an empty hall. He toed the threshold.
Don’t do it
.

But he did. Darting inside, he worked fast, cramming two biscuits into his mouth at the same time that he grubbed up a double handful for his pocket. As soon as he bit down, he nearly choked. The biscuits were tasteless and stale, like sand. No wonder they’d been left. He looked for a place to spit them but saw nothing.
Christ
. Maybe some lemon would help …

It should’ve registered before he even put the slice in his mouth. No scent, no tangy aroma. Too late, he remembered that the juice would burn his cut mouth something fierce, except it didn’t. The lemon had all the taste and punch of poor water. His throat convulsed in a swallow. Could not eating well put you
off your food, make everything taste bad? Unless the lemon had turned. Probably should leave the other one.
Biscuits are enough
. Well, presuming that they tasted better to Rima and Tony than him. He felt the hard knuckle of his mouthful of biscuit and lemon sliding slowly down the middle of his chest.
Nicking the lemon is so much butter on bacon
. Still, it
was
food, and Kramer was always going on about scurvy.