Requiem (The Penny Dreadfuls Book 1) (9 page)

BOOK: Requiem (The Penny Dreadfuls Book 1)
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THE STOREFRONT FOR
JW Reynolds was dark and looked gloomy in the night rain that was still falling when Chastity reached the shelter of the adjacent alley. On the way, she’d kept to the sewer tunnels and underground as much as possible, remaining unseen. She didn’t usually go abroad in her armor until most of the city was fast asleep, but tonight she needed to be earlier lest her smoke-bomb ruse injure sleeping tenants.

When she arrived, she saw that the rain had driven most into the shelter of their homes and inns, but a handful of people were still hurrying through the mud to their evening destinations; homes, inns or something not quite so comfortable. Chastity waited for the street to clear then hurried down the alley that ran alongside the cobblers, to where the back door was located. She paused at the door and again checked to make sure she wasn’t being observed. With no one in sight, she placed a hand against the lock; her magik glowed and the door opened with a click that was more felt than heard in the continual rain.

The inside of the shop was dark and smelled like oiled leather and tobacco smoke. Chastity moved like a shadow through the rows of tools, racks of leather, and stack of shoe lasts until she reached the small vent in the far wall. She lit the first of her bombs, placed it inside the opening then moved the next and repeated the process. By the time the second vent was closed the back of the shop was already filling with smoke; it looked as if a fire was raging through the store.

Chastity muttered a silent apology for anything damaged by the bombs and moved to the stairway door. After a few moments the woman from upstairs and her family exited, cloths and hands held over their mouths for protection from the smoke. As soon as they were clear Chastity tossed another of the bombs into the stairwell and ran to the top, her own mask serving as protection from the foul air.

Moody’s room looked as it had when she’d left. The stove remained unlit, the bed unmade and the air thick with an unusual chill. Chastity left the door open in case anyone decided to brave the smoke and turned her attention to the wall where the strange sound had come from. She reached out for the wall, but paused before touching it; the sensation before hadn’t been a pleasant one. She swallowed and placed her hand against the cold plaster, but this time there was no slithering vibration, no strange sensation of movement. It was just a wall made of cracked plaster coated in layers of grime and whitewash.

Chastity stepped back and spun, lashing out at the wall with her heel. The wall cracked under the impact and a large chunk of plaster fell to the floor trailing tendrils of slime that glistened even in the smoky room. Chastity frowned at the goop and pulled one of Nikola’s toys from her pouch. It was a double-walled glass tube with two liquids inside. He called them ‘phosphorescent sticks for seeing light without flame’ but everyone else called them torchglass. She shook the vial and directed the pale blue light it emitted into the hole she’d made. What was inside could only be described as the nest or burrow of some kind of slug-like creature. The slats within the wall were covered in a translucent slime that thickened toward the bottom into a milky white mucus. What she thought was discarded skin mixed with the mucus to form the floor of the nest, a sort of hammock shape that would support a full-sized person.

Chastity explored the nest with one gloved hand, working hard not to gag at the texture and stench. Inside were a variety of Calvin Moody’s personal items; a cheap watch with his name engraved on the outside, calling cards and tickets to his show, all wrapped in cheesecloth to protect them.

Moody, what on God’s earth are you?
Chastity wondered.

She set Moody’s belongings aside and used a test tube from her pouch to collect a sample of the slime. She would give it to Herbert’s lab to identify when she returned to the Sanctuary.

Chastity stepped away from the foul opening and checked the still smoldering bomb in the hallway. The small black ball was almost gone, only a small patch of grease remained, fitfully spitting smoke and sparks. She would have only a few more moments before the bombs went out and the smoke began to dissipate. When the tenants and police found there was no fire she suspected they would be rather angry.

Chastity turned back to the room and almost ran into Calvin Moody, who stood just a few feet away. He was nude, though considering the state of his manhood and the slime covering his body his nakedness would be the last thing anyone commented on. His body was emaciated and corpselike, with long spindly limbs, eyes that rolled in their sockets and shrunken testes. Yet he was very much alive.

“A nice trick, that,” he rasped. “Got Mrs. Cronk all worked up so you could search for my nest, well done.”

Chastity stepped back and placed a hand on her sword. “Mr. Moody, I would say it was good to see you, but you look as if you’re having a distressing day. Mayhap I should come back after you’ve bathed and donned some clothing.”

Moody smiled and Chastity could have sworn one of his teeth fell out.

“Clothing is too confining. What do you want?”

Chastity kept her hand on the hilt of her blade. Moody’s revolting appearance had caught her by surprise and she was fighting to get her nerves back under control.

“I had some questions about the murder of Mr. Davis late last night. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Moody shrugged and slime dripped from his arms onto the floor with a wet splat. “I know everything.”

Chastity had expected him to at least deny his involvement.

“You killed him then?”

Moody nodded and flashed a smile so quick that Chastity almost missed it. “You, know, I’ve never broken a law before in my life and now here I am breaking into buildings and killing people for the Bobbies to find. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had!”

He began to pace, his path taking him to the hole Chastity had made and back. Each footstep left a patch of slime on the floor, as if his very skin was secreting the viscous liquid.

“I doubt you know what it is like, growing up a freak and being turned into a sideshow monkey before you could even walk. I made the money being put down and spot on and they took everything. Now I will take it all back!”

Chastity stepped further out of Moody’s reach. “So it was your idea to kill Davis? To cut his head off and leave his corpse behind?”

Moody stopped pacing and smiled again, this time longer. “Yes. And then again, no.”

“That isn’t exactly helpful, Mr. Moody. What do you mean? Are you but a puppet?”

Moody giggled, a low, menacing sound that held everything but humor. “If I told you that, it would spoil the surprise. I love surprises!”

With startling speed he dodged forward, arms outstretched. Chastity’s blade was in her hand a heartbeat faster and she spun away from him, her blade a flashing whisper that removed his left hand just above the wrist. He backpedaled, keening like a wounded animal and made a leap for the window. Chastity followed and watched as the skinny man swarmed up the wall and leapt onto the adjacent building, his movements fluid even with a missing hand.

Chastity wasn’t about to let him get away. She sheathed her sword, trying not to think of the slime that coated the exquisite blade and judged the distance outside. In one movement she passed through the window, gripped the drainpipe and used her legs to propel her across the alley to the adjacent rooftop. She rolled when she hit the slick shingles and slid to the edge where her boot caught on what was left of the gutter and kept her from plummeting two stories to the alley below. With a motion she had practiced for years, she drew her sword and wedged it between the shingles with one hand.  Then, using it is a piton she began to climb. She was partway to the top when Moody appeared in her view.

“Having trouble, girl?” he asked. “You should have stayed inside where it was safe!”

He stomped on her hand with his heel and Chastity felt the small bones grate against one another. She grit her teeth against the pain and drew one of her pistols with her free hand. She hadn’t wanted to risk a shot, but she saw no other choice. She also didn’t want to kill Moody, not until she found out what he knew. She squeezed the revolver’s trigger and the silvered bullet exploded from the barrel to pass through Moody’s leg just above the knee. He howled and scrambled away again.

With her hand free, but almost useless Chastity began to slide back toward the gutter. She holstered her pistol as she slid and used her good hand to slow her fall, but it was not enough. When she reached the edge she again caught the old clay gutter with her boots, but this time her weight was too much and the gutter gave way. She could hear Moody’s merry cackle echoing somewhere above and felt the gut-wrenching sensation of free fall before her good hand caught the drainpipe and turned her fall into a helpless slide into the rain-filled culvert at the bottom. The impact knocked the breath from her. She gasped for air and felt hands on her, both helping her up and tugging at her many pouches. She slapped the hands away and craned her neck for any sign of Moody on the roof above.

“Are you okay, Miss?” one of the men asked.

Chastity saw Moody lean over the edge, his manic grin in place. He then ran away, waving her sword over his head like a child at play.

“No,” she said. “Excuse me, a monster is getting away.”

She started off in a dead run, only half watching the street ahead of her. Here and there she caught glimpses of Moody passing over alleys and she followed as best as she could, often running into other pedestrians, rebounding and running away again with a shouted, “pardon me,” as she accelerated away.

After several minutes, she found herself deeper within the alleyways of Whitechapel, in a courtyard of sorts between five buildings. She’d been here before, during the day it held carts selling pork pies, street meat and ill-gotten goods, but tonight its only denizens were a half-dozen thugs sharing a damp fag-end and counting out coins. One of the men spotted her and shrank back into the shadows with a muffled, “Oi, keep the coins, she’s bloody dangerous!”

The other men laughed at him and spread out to block Chastity’s path.

This again?
Chastity thought.

Out loud she said, “Gentlemen, I’m in a hurry. I don’t know what you were told, but I suggest you keep the money and get out of my way.”

“We couldn’t do that, Miss. Mr. Cutbush paid us good coin to stop you.”

His accent made it sound as if he couldn’t pronounce ‘t’s’. They were implied rather than said.

Chastity eyed the men and dropped a handful of tiny caltrops into her hand.

“Who is Mr. Cutbush?”

By way of answer the man pulled a cosh from his sleeve and swung. Chastity side-stepped and threw the sharp, jack-shaped caltrops into his face. She kicked the next one in the gentleman-vegetables and ran; she’d find out who Cutbush was later, for now she needed to catch Moody and he was getting away. She pounded down an alley with the name of Heartless and used a rotting crate to help her leap over the fence at the end. She skidded in the mud on the other side and almost fell into a pair of Bobbies standing in the protection next to a well-lit pub.

“Pardon me, officers,” she said. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Are you alright, lass?” One asked. “That was a nasty fall.”

Chastity smiled then remembered she was wearing a mask. She turned her face away from the light and said, “I’m fine, thank you. I’ll just be on my way.”

“Stop her!” a voice yelled. “She stole ol’ Jimmy’s pay!”

Chastity didn’t have to look to know it was one of the men paid by Cutbush.

“I did nothing of the sort!”

The other officer gripped her shoulder. “Hold on, missy. You did come over the fence like the devil hisself was following you. What’s in all them pouches?”

Chastity sighed and readied herself. “This is ridiculous. Officer, I’m sorry, I don’t have time to explain.”

She pulled herself free, spun and swept his legs out from under him. She stepped hard on his partner’s foot and started running again. It only took a moment for both the police officers and the thugs to give chase, she could hear them coming after her, ringing their bells to attract other police in the area. She was trying to decide if continuing the search was worth it when Moody again appeared atop a building just a few blocks away. He squatted at the edge of the roof and Chastity could see that he appeared to be re-growing his severed hand like a gecko grew a second tail. The man, or whatever he was, was becoming more interesting from moment to moment.

Chastity bowed her head and ran harder, twice having to dodge Bobbies stepping out of alleys and side-streets in an effort to stop her mad dash through Whitechapel. She knocked the last one sprawling then jumped atop a rain barrel to reach the roof of a small bakery that smelled of fresh pies. From there she could see Moody, now moving at a more leisurely pace; His pale skin stood out in the lightning like chalk on a slate. Chastity followed, leaping over alleys and trying to avoid the handful of pursuers that had been brave enough to follow her onto the rooftops. She was about to leap to another building and get that much closer to Moody, who was resting not far away, when she heard a muffled scream from behind her. She turned to see two terrified officers and one of the thugs on the building behind her. They were staring in horror at something below her sight line. She ran forward and looked down to see a young officer hanging from the clay gutter by one hand while the other flailed against the side of the building. Chastity slid head first to the bottom and caught his wrist just as his strength waned and he started to fall. His weight pulled her part way over the edge and she caught herself on the same piece of gutter that had saved him from a three story fall.

BOOK: Requiem (The Penny Dreadfuls Book 1)
5.35Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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