Requiem (The Penny Dreadfuls Book 1) (10 page)

BOOK: Requiem (The Penny Dreadfuls Book 1)
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“I’ve got you,” she yelled above the storm.

“Aye, but for how long?”  the officer called back.

“Not long,” was Chastity’s answer. “Can you climb over me?”

The officer’s eyes widened. “Miss, no man should touch a woman in such a manner!”

“It’s either that or make a decent sized bloodstain in the middle of the alley! Get climbing, boy!”

The officer swallowed and started to pull himself up, using the belts and straps of Chastity’s outfit as handholds. He rolled onto the roof then helped Chastity up beside him where they lay side by side, gathering their wits.

“Thank you, Miss,” the officer said when he could speak again.

Chastity stood and adjusted her mask, which was becoming choked with water.

“You’re welcome, officer. Next time, keep your feet on the ground.”

“Arrest her!” the thug said from across the alley. “That little ragamuffin robbed me!”

“She just saved my man’s life,” the patrolman replied. “I think that wins her the benefit of the doubt this night.”

“She’s a dipper and owes me a finny!” the thug shouted.

“Can you prove it?” the officer asked.

The thug paused and his pointing finger drooped. “Well, no, not as such, but surely she has my money. Look how she’s dressed!”

“Protection from the rain, of course.”

The patrolman cupped his hands and yelled, “You can go about your business, Miss. Geoff, you get down from there and meet us in the alley.”

Chastity turned and looked for Moody; he was long gone.

 

 

 

 

 

CHASTITY CLIMBED TO
where she’d last seen Moody and found her sword in a puddle of slime mixed with what looked like a layer of skin. She felt certain that it would smell to high heaven were it not for her rain-soaked mask and the smoke from a nearby chimney. She pulled her sword from the mess and cleaned it as best she could before slipping it back into the sheath at her hip. With it seated and a lecture from Herbert avoided, she sat in the lee of the chimney and bandaged her hand. It didn’t feel as if the bones were broken, but it was stiff and sore and probably would be for several days. If she was careful it shouldn’t impede her work. 

When she was finished, she turned and started back toward Moody’s apartment. Though he was unlikely to return and it was a risk after the commotion she’d caused, his severed hand may yet provide some clues, at least to what he was. Herbert and Kyrie were miracle workers at identification.

Clocks were chiming the tenth hour when she reached the alleyway beside JW Reynolds. Everything was quiet save for the officer pacing outside, truncheon at the ready. Chastity wasn’t surprised to find an officer on duty, doubtless someone had called the police in once the cause of the fire, or lack of one, had been discovered. She watched him long enough to be certain he wasn’t going to notice her, then climbed the drainpipe she’d used to make her exit just a few hours before. The window Moody had broken was still open and she climbed over the sash, being careful of her injured hand. Now the adrenaline had faded, it was beginning to smart.

The room looked unchanged; the hole she’d made in the wall, the strange mucus left behind by Moody and the detritus of their short fight were all as she’d last seen them. But the door was closed and his hand, which had fallen just inside, was gone. Chastity crept to the spot where she was certain it lay and confirmed it had indeed left a patch of slime on the wooden floor, a patch that was now drying in the warmth from below.

From behind her she heard the ominous click of a revolver. She half turned to see a figure standing in the shadow beside the stove. He was wearing a Western hat and holding Moody’s hand in a piece of torn newspaper.

“Looking for this?” Inspector Price asked.

Chastity looked at him and again was grateful her features were obscured by her hood and mask. She hadn’t expected to find Price here, though she shouldn’t have been surprised. A bloodless, severed hand was the sort of case he would be interested in.

“I asked you a question,” Price said when she hesitated.

Chastity raised her hands and turned so she was facing him, but deeper in shadow. She couldn’t let him see her face or capture her, but she also didn’t want to be shot, and by all accounts Price was a skilled marksman.

“Give me the hand, officer,” she said, her voice muffled by her mask.

“You’re in no position to make demands, kid,” Price replied. “Where is the rest of Mr. Moody?”

Chastity smiled behind her mask. “I’ve no idea. If you see him please let him know I’d like another word.”

Price moved closer to Chastity. “I don’t think you understand your situation. More than a dozen people saw someone matching your description flee the area. When police arrived they found a severed hand and no sign of the occupant. I can arrest you just based on that. Cooperate and it will be easier for you.”

Chastity folded her arms, putting her hands close to her own weapons. “Officer, perhaps your hat and demeanor will work on others, but not on me. How many of those dozen can identify anything more than clothing similar to mine? You could hold me, but I suspect you’re an honest man and won’t arrest me without evidence. You have none.”

Price’s face hardened. “I have a severed hand, a hole in a wall and a missing man. I want answers, boy, or I am throwing you in a cell and tossing the key in the river, evidence or no.”

Chastity looked into Price’s eyes and knew he would hold her for the night if only to scare what he thought was a boy. Teenaged criminals were commonplace in the city.

“As you wish, officer. Arrest me.”

Price nodded. “Fine. Put your hands on your head.”

She did as he asked. When she did, Price lowered his revolver and went for her guns. Chastity grabbed his hand, spun into his guard and slammed her elbow into his sternum. She felt the woosh of his breath on her face and felt sorry for what she was doing, but she saw no other course. She pulled the Colt from his belt and placed it against his head as he gasped for air.

“I’m sorry, Inspector. I promise you we’re on the same side. Give me Moody’s hand and I’ll be on my way.”

Price coughed and drew a ragged breath. “I never told you I was an inspector. Who are you?”

Chastity paused. “You’re dressed in plain clothes, obviously you’re not a regular officer, Inspector. Nice hat, by the way. Now give me the hand!”

Price straightened, still fighting for breath. “If we’re on the same side, you won’t shoot me in cold blood. So what now?”

He was right. Chastity couldn’t shoot an innocent man, especially one like Price. Before she could think what to do, he yelled “Catch!” and threw Moody’s hand at her face. She batted it aside and almost dropped the Colt. The opening was enough for Price to grab her hand and squeeze. She screamed in pain and dropped the Colt.  Price’s eyes widened and he let go.

“You’re not a kid, you’re a woman!”

Chastity growled behind her mask and kicked Price, only remembering at the last moment not to use her full strength. Price collapsed around the bundle of pain in his abdomen and Chastity picked up Moody’s severed hand.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Inspector,” she said.

Moments later she was jogging across rooftops, the paper-wrapped appendage safely in one of her many pouches. Her own hand was swollen and aching and her mind was a jumble of thoughts. She would no doubt have to interact with Price again, would he know she was the masked vigilante running across the city? Only time would tell.

 

 

MORNING ROSE AND
for once Chastity was up with the sun, what there was of it behind the ever-present clouds that hung over the city. She’d chosen to dress in leather breeches tucked into boots that kissed her knees and a crimson blouse beneath a matching black corset. She was in no mood to deal with a chemise, bustle or petticoat. She would worry about being ladylike if her day called for it.

She spent the early part of the morning having her hand seen to. Doc, an American thought long dead by his countrymen, used leaches to reduce the swelling then applied a cream of his own design. He wouldn’t say what it contained other than wild yams. It worked, but smelled more of urine than anything else. On top of this he’d placed a linen bandage with instructions that she change it every few hours.

When she was done, she adjourned to the laboratory where she’d left Moody’s hand. The lab was in its usual turmoil, with massive heat from the smithy, electricity crawling the walls from one of Nikola’s experiments and the distant sound of explosions as technicians tried to perfect some gadget or another. Chastity found Herbert in the subterranean cavern he’d set aside for organic specimens. He’d placed the hand in what looked like a large fish bowl and was studying it through the glass.

“Good morning, Herbert,” Chastity said.

“Good morning,” he replied without looking. “I’d like egg and chips, please.”

He continued to study the hand, which was oozing a puss-like substance from the wrist.

“Herbert?”

Herbert looked away from the hand and blinked at Chastity. “Oh! Oh, I’m sorry, Chastity I thought you were my assistant. I haven’t had my breakfast, yet.”

“I’m sure she will be here soon. You seem more distracted than usual, what is it?”

Herbert sat back in his chair and rubbed at his eyes, only somewhat hampered by the magnifying contraption that covered them. “It’s this hand you brought in last night. I’ve never seen anything like it!”

Chastity hopped onto a stool opposite him. “It’s a hand, Herbert. I daresay you’ve seen a few. Even severed ones.”

Herbert shook his head. “Not like this. Not like this at all! This hand is still alive, you see. Or, well, perhaps ‘not dead’ is a better term.”

Chastity leaned closer to the hand. “That makes no sense, Herbert. I cut it off Moody myself. Of course it’s dead.”

“But it isn’t,” Herbert said with a smile. “It responds to electric stimulus and outside influence as if it is still alive. Observe.”

Herbert placed an electric probe into the hand and pulled a lever on the nearby generator, one of Nikola’s toys. Chastity had seen this trick before, the hand should contract and shake in an unnatural manner. But Moody’s didn’t. It jerked at the initial jolt, but then began to writhe as if it was trying to get away from the probe.

“That’s…strange,” Chastity said.

Herbert put the probe aside. “Understatement of the day, Chas. It should be impossible, but Moody’s hand acts as if it has a mind of its own or is still attached to the body.”

That made alarm bells go off in her head. “Still attached?”

“That isn’t all. Do you see the secretion from the wrist? It’s full of blood, among other things I haven’t been able to identify. It should have stopped bleeding hours ago, but his hand is producing its own body fluids. For all I know it could grow another body, given time.”

“Destroy it,” Chastity said.

Herbert blinked at her. “It’s just a hand, Chastity. A fascinating one, we can’t just—”

“We have to destroy it!” Chastity yelled.

She grabbed the bowl and ran. Seconds later she’d thrown the bowl, hand and all, into the massive smithy furnace where the hand twitched and came to life. It scrabbled across the coals, flame dancing across its skin as it moved. It was almost out of the furnace when it exploded in a shower of scorched flesh and flaming mucus.

“Unbelievable!” Herbert said, wiping burning flesh from his apron.

Chastity shook her head. “No, just improbable. I have to speak with Malachi, excuse me.”

She found Malachi in his library behind a stack of tomes labeled in German. He was eating from a bowl of porridge, though he was more holding the spoon near his lips than actually eating anything. Most of it had fallen back into the bowl and onto his robe.

Chastity moved enough books that she could sit beside him. “Good morn, Mal. Still working on Father William’s case?”

“Yes. He seems to be looking for something in particular, but won’t tell me what it is. It’s vexing to be looking and have no idea if you’ve found what you are looking for,” Malachi replied.

He pushed the tome he’d been reading aside and addressed his breakfast, which looked about as appetizing as mud.  Chastity let him eat a few bites before asking, “What do you know about ghouls?”

Malachi almost spat out his porridge. “Ghouls? At breakfast?”

“It’s important, Mal. I encountered someone…something last night that I can’t classify,” Chastity said. “I think it might have been a ghoul or something similar.”

“No one has seen a ghoul in the last fifty years, the last hunter to kill one was—”

“Abraham,” Chastity finished.

Malachi set his spoon aside and folded his hands in front of him. With his eyes closed he began to recite. “Ghouls are nocturnal creatures spawned from the restless dead, they’ve a history that stretches as far back to ancient Egypt. They feed on corpses and the flesh of the dying with the earliest known encounter documented on the walls of the Necropolis. They can only be killed by fire. Limbs regrow if severed and the entire ghoul can spawn if only a small portion remains unburned.”

He opened his eyes and focused on Chastity. “The last ghoul was supposed to have been incinerated by Abraham while on a mission to Romania more than fifty years ago.”

“Except I think Calvin Moody is one, which shouldn’t be possible. I would swear he was human only a few days ago,” Chastity said. “How does one become a ghoul?”

Malachi shrugged. “It’s hard to say, really. According to legend a restless spirit that consumed human flesh in life can rise after death as a ghoul. But again, none have been seen in decades.”

Chastity chewed a thumbnail and stared at nothing. Her thoughts were interrupted by Asok’s thump at the door. “Chastity? Your runners have tracked down Jacob Lancaster, little Jacob just reported in.”

BOOK: Requiem (The Penny Dreadfuls Book 1)
12.96Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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