The Heartless City (2 page)

“This is the building, miss!” he called out over the pouring rain, unlatching the door and extending his hand. “Lady Cullum will meet us inside!”

She nodded and took his hand, keeping her daughter’s tight in the other, and the two of them crawled up out of the crate and into the icy rain. They were somewhere near the East End docks, which a month ago would have been bustling, but now all the buildings were empty and dark, dead as the city’s trade. Virginia glanced up, unable to tell if the sun had set or not, as the sky was a blanket of fog, rain, and stormy, soot-stained clouds.

“Go to the door that says ‘Office,’” Beck yelled, crawling behind them and seizing their trunk. “She said it would be unlocked.”

Virginia nodded again and hurried toward the shadowy building, attempting to shield her daughter from the rain beneath her cloak. She found the door, pulled it open, and then ushered the little girl through. The room was dim and filled with ghostly papers, folders, and files.

“Are you all right, darling?” she asked, kneeling before her once they were both inside and smoothing the rain from her dark, unruly curls.

“Yes, but I’m cold.”

Virginia pressed her hand to her daughter’s cheek. “Go ahead. Just remember to stop once Lady Cullum comes for us with her carriage.”

The little girl nodded and closed her eyes, and her damp, clammy skin grew warm beneath Virginia’s fingers. She let out a breath and smiled, and Virginia smiled back.

“It shouldn’t be long now,” Beck called out.

Virginia looked up to see him hauling their trunk inside the room. He sat it down, closed the door, and then pulled a pistol from his pocket, peeking out through the curtains of the window a few feet away.

“I thought they couldn’t be killed with guns,” Virginia said, rising up. “That they heal and regenerate immediately after being wounded.”

There was a name for the creatures, but she didn’t like to use it, didn’t like to think it any more than she thought
his
name, because it was the name he had called himself that night. Thankfully, when Beck replied, he didn’t use it, either.

“They do, and that’s what people thought at first, but according to Lady Cullum’s latest wire, they can be killed by either a shot to the back of the head or complete decapitation. Anything that destroys the brainstem or severs it from the body.”

He glanced at the little girl then and cleared his throat, looking embarrassed, but she didn’t flinch, and Virginia actually brightened.

“That’s good,” she said, walking over to him. “They aren’t invincible.” She glanced at the second, smaller gun, sticking out of the top of his boot. “May I have that one then?”

He furrowed his brow. “You can shoot one of these?”

“I grew up on a farm. I’ve been shooting coyotes and rabbits since I was nine.”

Perhaps coyotes and rabbits weren’t the same as nearly invincible monsters, but Beck was impressed enough to hand her the gun.

“What else did she say about them?” she asked as she took it from him. “Lady Cullum, I mean. In the wire she sent to you.”

Virginia hadn’t had contact with Lady Cullum since her letter, as she’d spent the three weeks since then on a train and an ocean liner. She hadn’t even written her back, as it wouldn’t have been any use; by the time her letter had reached Virginia, the quarantine had begun, and mail was no longer being carried in or out of the city. Apparently, however, she had managed to transmit more information to Beck by telegraph.

“She told me what they do,” he replied. “I mean, the way they kill.”

Virginia swallowed, glancing down at her boots. “Yes, she told me that, too.”

In truth, she’d read that particular detail in the journal. A few months after the doctor shared his secret with his friends, one of them broke the circle of trust and tampered with the serum, altering the substance from a liquid to tablet form. Harsher and more potent, the new product didn’t simply increase its user’s strength and strip them of conscience, it transformed them into massive, hulking beasts with black, unseeing eyes; razor-sharp teeth; and smooth, hairless skin as white as a corpse. High on his own arrogance and eager to pad his pockets, the doctor’s friend began to manufacture and sell the tablet, and only then did the devastating effects become apparent. The doctor and his friends had stolen, raped, and brutalized, but the monsters the new drug created did one thing and one thing only: kill. But that perversion was not the worst nor the one that doomed the city. Once consumed, the new drug altered the user’s genes forever. After that, they could become the monster at any time, without any warning and completely against their will.

That was how, in the span of only two months, London collapsed. Half of its people were dead and a fourth of those left were clandestine killers―ticking bombs that could detonate at any given moment. And, as Beck had noted, they had a particular way of killing, a way that seemed quite fitting to Virginia.

They ate people’s hearts.

That was what the doctor had done in his lab all those years ago―gouged her hopes, slayed her dreams, and devoured the heart of her life. After that, she’d fled the country, never telling a single soul what her mentor had created.

Or that she’d been the first to face one of London’s original monsters.

But he was dead now, she reminded herself, gripping the gun and clenching her jaw as she looked back up through the window. When the crisis broke out and the government captured the man who’d made the tablets, he exposed the doctor’s secrets in an attempt to save himself. It didn’t work, however. Both men were taken and charged with treason, and an angry mob stormed the jail and killed them before the authorities could. Virginia would never see those burning amber eyes again.

Except, of course, whenever she looked in the eyes of her own daughter.

“That’s how they sense them, you know,” Beck said.

She blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

“The monsters. They don’t see very well. The way they find their victims is by sensing their beating hearts.”

Virginia glanced at her daughter, who had seated herself on the floor against the wall, now warm and content. Lady Cullum’s wealth would give them a measure of security, but perhaps there was an additional way the girl could protect herself.

“There―I think that’s her.”

Virginia felt the relief she had expected when they made it across the border wash through her veins. She turned to the window and followed Beck’s gaze as two stately horses materialized through the fog and rain. They were drawing Lady Cullum’s carriage, the same coach Virginia had ridden in with her five years ago, only now there were bolts on the doors and thick, black bars across the windows. Two armed men sat on each side of the coachman, and when the carriage stopped, they leapt down into the mud, unlatched the door, and slid it open. A wide, black umbrella emerged, and then finally, Lady Cullum.

The wealthy widow had no relation to the royal family, but one would never suspect it from the way she carried herself. Her firm posture and smooth gaze were nothing short of regal, and Virginia had never known a woman more confident or quick-witted. Even now, in a downpour on the ghostly East End docks, she walked up the path to the office door as if ascending a throne. The two armed men followed close behind her, and once the three of them reached the building, Beck opened the door and extended his hand to help her through.

“Lady Cullum.”

“Mr. Beck,” she said in her firm, crisp voice as she took his hand and allowed him to guide her inside. “I can’t thank you enough.”

He nodded deferentially and took her dripping umbrella, while the two other men remained outside the door, keeping watch through the rain. Lady Cullum turned and searched the room, and when she found Virginia, her eyes grew soft and visibly moist, and the thin line of her mouth curled into a smile.

“My darling girl.”

“Lady Cullum,” Virginia murmured, her own eyes suddenly stinging with tears.

The regal woman swept across the room.

“Silly child, call me Mary.”

She embraced her, filling her lungs with her familiar lilac scent, and Virginia closed her eyes and allowed the tears to slip down her cheeks. Besides her daughter, no one had embraced her since her parents died, and she hadn’t realized until that moment just how much she’d missed the comfort of someone else’s arms. Then, with a jolt, she also realized she still had the gun in her hand.

“Oh, wait,” she said, pulling back from the embrace and walking around Lady Cullum to hand the gun back to Beck. “Thank you. I won’t be needing it now.” She wiped the tears from her eyes and then turned back to Lady Cullum, but she was no longer looking at her.

She was looking at her daughter.

Virginia’s muscles tensed. She’d known this moment was coming, but she still was not prepared.

“Is this… your daughter?” Lady Cullum asked, turning back to her.

Virginia swallowed, set her jaw, and walked over to the girl, then helped her to her feet and took her hand.

“Yes, it is.”

Lady Cullum held her gaze and then looked at the girl again, and Virginia knew she was calculating her age and doing the math. There was no way she didn’t recognize those amber eyes; the secret Virginia had kept from even her parents was now laid bare. The room seemed to shrink and the air seemed to thin around her, but then Lady Cullum spoke.

“What a lovely child,” she said, glancing up. “She looks just like you, Virginia.”

Those words, combined with the warmth and understanding that shone in her face, filled Virginia’s lungs with air and her eyes with grateful tears. She knew Lady Cullum wouldn’t ask her any more questions, wouldn’t force her to open the wounds she’d worked so hard to close. But others, she knew, would not be nearly as kind or sympathetic. No one else who had known the doctor could find out about her daughter.

Or the strange, inexplicable things the girl could do.

Lady Cullum bent down and extended her hand to the child. “How do you do, my dear?”

Virginia felt her daughter’s skin obediently cool as she took the woman’s outstretched hand and replied, “Very well, thank you.”

Lady Cullum beamed. “What a proper young lady you are.” She released her hand and straightened back up. “Well, now that we’ve all been introduced, we’d best be on our way.”

They hurried out through the mud and rain toward the waiting carriage. The two armed men returned to their seats on either side of the coachmen, and Beck―his pistol still at the ready―hoisted the trunk up into the carriage and climbed in beside Lady Cullum, across from Virginia and her daughter.

“I’m sorry you had to arrive this way,” Lady Cullum said to Virginia as the carriage lurched and then rattled up to the street and away from the docks.

“There’s no need to apologize. How else could we have gotten inside a heavily guarded city?”

“You wouldn’t have had to cower inside a crate like some kind of criminal if the Lord Mayor hadn’t refused to listen to me, as usual.”

“The Lord Mayor?”

“Harlan Branch. He’s in charge of the city now.” Lady Cullum sighed and shook her head. “The queen, all members of parliament, and most of the House of Lords escaped as soon as the crisis broke out. They relocated to York and made it the temporary capitol, leaving the Lord Mayor to run the city until the quarantine ends. I asked him to make a special provision for you to be allowed inside, and he not only refused me, he specifically instructed the border guards to deny you entry.”

“But why?” Virginia asked. “What could it hurt to let me in?”

“He said it would be a waste of time,” Lady Cullum said with a snort. “That only
real
scientists―and by ‘real,’ of course, he meant ‘male’―could possibly be capable of discovering a cure. In truth, however, I think he simply resents the influence I still have and wanted to show me once and for all that he’s the boss of the city.”

Virginia’s chest tightened. “What will he do when he finds out I’m here?”

“He’ll remember that I’m a powerful woman who’s not to be trifled with. And then, when you do discover a cure, he’ll apologize and thank me.”

Virginia flushed, both with admiration for her audacity and with pride for how fervently she believed Virginia could help. But then the warmth dissolved, replaced by a rush of icy fear.

“But what if he’s right?” she asked. “I never finished my degree. I’m hardly qualified―”

“There’s no one more qualified than you. You were studying with the doctor when he first created the drug.”

“But he kept all that a secret from me, and this new drug isn’t the same―”

“But it exists because of
his
.” Lady Cullum leaned forward, her fierce gaze penetrating the shadows. “You will find a cure, Virginia. And in the meantime, I will do my part by creating shelters.”

“Shelters?”

“Yes. For the people who are infected.”

Virginia knit her brow, her blood running cold. “You mean… for the monsters?”

“They’re people,” Lady Cullum replied, leaning back but not averting her gaze. “They have a horrendous disease, but they are people like you and me. If I can create a place where they feel safe enough to admit they’re infected and lock themselves away from society with dignity, then we can make the streets that much safer until you find a cure.”

Virginia’s daughter yawned and laid her head in her mother’s lap, and Virginia smoothed her hair with one hand and pressed the other against the carriage wall to keep herself upright, as if she were physically bending beneath the weight of the challenge ahead.

“We can do this,” Lady Cullum continued, leaning forward again and clutching Virginia’s free hand in her own. “All hope is not lost.”

Virginia nodded, her throat dry, and Lady Cullum squeezed her fingers once more and sat back in her seat.

“Together, we will end the curse of Dr. Henry Jekyll.”