The Diabolical Miss Hyde (37 page)

Eliza swallowed, defiant. She'd walked alone into a lunatic's lair and emerged alive. Twice. She could surely face this. But A.R.'s threats resounded in the murkiest part of her brain.
Poke your nose into my affairs, princess, and I'll make you wish you'd never been born . . .

Steeling herself, she walked into the dark.

The wooden steps mocked her as she descended,
creak, creeeak!
The blue glow dimmed, the electric lights set further and further apart. In the distance, an Underground train rattled and banged. The pressure in her ears grew, the warm blackness thickening. How far down was down? She'd lost count. Above her head, water gurgled, the sewer or a subterranean river. The smell of hot iron grew stronger.

Abruptly, the tunnel switched to the right, and the light died.

Blindly, she edged forward. One step, another, fingers outstretched . . . and then, rough leather gave under her touch.

A curtain. Her fingers prickled in warning, and her tongue stung with a sharp, familiar flavor . . .

Spelldust,
warned Lizzie, and for once Eliza was grateful for her insight.
There be hidden fey traps here. Beware.

Slowly, Eliza pushed the curtain aside.

Light dazzled, a wash of sweet-scented warmth. Her ears popped. A shiver rippled over her skin.

The world telescoped, sights and sounds hurtling away to an invisible pinpoint. Eliza staggered, deafened, her head spinning.

Everything beyond six feet away was a whirling blur. At her feet, a fat white pig hove into view, snuffling for scraps along the sawdust-covered floor. A leash dangled from his collar, attached to the slender arm of a lady who wore long lacy gloves and a ruffled silken gown the color of verdigris
.

The woman peered at her through silver opera glasses on a stalk. Her eyes were impossibly large and liquid, the verdant
green of summer leaves, and her skin and the frothing hair that fell to her waist
glowed,
illuminated from within by some strange fairy-green light.

Eliza smoothed her own dress, self-conscious. The green lady was astonishingly beautiful. Never could she pass for ordinary. Likely, she was a prisoner here, chased underground along with anyone else who was fey-struck or talented or just plain strange.

“In or out, sprite,” the lady said crossly. Her perfume was like spun sugar, delicate and mouth-watering. “Are you a cat, to be stuck halfway? Don't let in the draft.”

“Oh. I'm sorry.” Bewildered, Eliza shuffled inside. The curtain dropped behind her, and as if a spell had broken, the world crashed back into focus and noise erupted like a volcano.

The room was vast, lit by fires and torches both, ceiling and floor lost in cavernous darkness. Galleries ringed the enormous space, stacked four or five high like boxes at the opera, teeming with people and beasts and creatures of a like she'd never seen. Costumes of all kinds, from ratty frock coats covering half-naked bodies to the glossiest peacock finery. She saw clothes from bygone eras, periwigs, ruffs and farthingales, polished suits of armor, and garments of unfamiliar shiny cloth. Softest silk, roughest leather, lace and satin, in a glittering prism of colors, sky blue and sunshine yellow and brightest forest green.

Ladders and flimsy wooden bridges criss-crossed in all directions, joining galleries, stretching between levels at giddy, impossible heights. Urchins and fey-fingered creatures swung
from ledges, crawled across beams, sat cross-legged atop poles and yardarms.

The noise was incredible. People ate and fought and laughed like lunatics. They danced and whirled and kissed like lovers. They jumped and cavorted and held deep conversations in smoke-filled corners, drank from carafes of rainbow liquids that sparkled and misted like magical potions.

Music battered her from all directions, here a fiddler, there an accordion, over there a wailing singer, a hurdy-gurdy, a brass band. Smoke drifted, sparkling with purplish spells and scents that dizzied and entranced. She peered left and right, trying to sort through the enormous crowd, but her mind just boggled. How would she ever find the man she sought?

“He's down there.” The green lady pointed with her opera glasses, down a puzzle of twisting ladders to the heaving crowd below.

“Who?”

But the green lady had already followed her snuffling pig away.

Eliza blinked, bewildered. It didn't seem beyond possibility that the lady could read her mind.

Lizzie shrugged gaily.
Well, we're here now.

“Yes, we are.” Eliza picked up her skirts and started down the ladder, boots slipping on the rickety rungs.

Unseen hands gripped her waist and whisked her down to the landing. Breathless, she turned to see who had aided her, but they were gone into the carousing crowd. Fey children darted between a forest of legs and skirts. Next to her, a frog-fingered boy slipped his hand into an impossibly fat woman's
purse, and a pointy-nosed fellow with a beetroot face hissed at the boy and flung him away empty-handed. “No thieving in the Castle,” he growled.

“The Castle? What's that?” Eliza struggled to keep her feet as a gaggle of dancers whirled by, screaming their excitement.

“This is.” The beetroot man yanked his top hat on tighter, and tilted his head to peer along his nose at her. “The Rats' Castle. Ruled by the King. Where we odd rats run, heh heh.” He paused. “You don't look odd.”

“I'm sorry?”

“Odd. You don't look it.” His beady eyes narrowed. “Odd's good.”

Eliza's guts burned like fever. She loomed over him—easily, as he was half her height—and her vision juddered and zoomed. “Oh, aye? How's this for
odd
?”

The little red man's face blanched to pink. “Very good. The King will see you. He's that way. Follow the carousel tune.” And he scuttled away, sniffing at the floor like a bloodhound.

Heh.
Lizzie grinned, satisfied.
Told you I'd come in handy.

Down another ladder, across a crowded landing where a raucous gambling game was going on, a pair of pennies tossed in the air amid cheers and curses and the clink of wagers being paid. Unseen hands grabbed hers, whirled her through the crowd, passing her on to the next pair, and the next, helping her on her way.

Down again, a carnival in full flight. Acrobats cartwheeled amid fire-eaters and fortune-tellers. Clowns mimed and cavorted.
A big brown bear danced at the end of a rhinestone-studded leash and a tiny elephant honked, his trunk curling.

Here, a fighting ring with wooden rails, crushed in by spectators. Grunts, snarls, flesh smacking on flesh, punctuated by the splatter of blood on the wooden floor. A cheer erupted as the fight ended, and money changed hands in enormous quantities. Other wagers, too, involving drinks, kisses, body parts being shaved. The crowd parted, a limp and bleeding man was dragged away, and the next fight started.

In the distance, an ornate carousel spun slowly, dreamlike. The painted plaster figures—stately unicorns, poodles, dolphins, over-sized rats with grinning teeth—were festooned with tiny electric lights in rainbow colors. The organ ground out a melancholy waltz in a minor key. Atop the carousel, twinkling arc-lights were arranged in the outline of a crooked crown.

Or a court jester's belled hat.

The crowd ebbed and swelled, as if the music, heady smells, and laughter pushed them from side to side. Everyone seemed taller than she, looming over her. Eyes flashed, sinister now, the electric light casting an evil glint.

Lizzie's invisible hand tightened on hers, comforting. Blindly, Eliza fought her way through, clawing at gossamer skirts, leather coats, bare skin. Intoxicating scent engulfed her, sweet and tart like absinthe, and she swayed and fell to her knees.

All of a sudden, the crowd parted.

She was isolated, alone. The carousel's lights glittered, spinning, and a tall shadow fell across her bunched skirts.
The shadow of a structure made of wire, broken electrical circuits, hinges and forks, and fragments of metal machines. All twisted together in tight knots to form a chair.

A throne, to be precise.

Dizzy, Eliza looked up.

T
HE MAN—THE CREATURE—UPON THE THRONE LOOKED
neither old nor especially young. Ageless. His old-fashioned frock coat was the color of plums, over gray doeskin trousers and scuffed black boots. Grayish hair was cropped short beneath his battered top hat. His shoulders hunched, lopsided, and he toyed absently with his gold-topped cane in one big callused hand.

But something was wrong with his face. Handsome, with a compelling strength, yet . . . warped. Corrupted. Mouth just a little too cruel, eyes too sunken and bruised. As if something beautiful had spoiled.

Eliza swallowed, dry. His gaze hadn't unlocked from hers. The color of storm clouds, alive with rage and afire with deep-seated hatred. Her father's eyes.

Her
eyes, alight with living hell.

“Eliza, my sweet.” That rough, not-quite-respectable drawl prickled her skin.

As if her name were a signal, a hush descended—or was it
some magic spell? Around her, the crazy party danced on, but it was as if a glass wall had solidified between them. Though the figures howled and cavorted just the same, the sounds were muted, as if from a great distance.

She was still on her knees. Should she rise? At his feet, his lackeys fawned. A sharp-eyed lad with rabbit's ears; a stunted fellow with sharp teeth and a bulbous belly; an ogrelike woman in a chain-mail suit. Another skinny creature was shackled to the throne by a chain around his ankle, his bare back stricken with pox scars and welts. He chewed on a lump of gristle and sang himself a song. “
Cockles . . . and mussels . . . aaa-live, alive-OH!
”

The beautiful green lady whom Eliza had met levels above loitered by the King's side, draping one translucent green arm across the top of the throne. Her long apple hair frothed over his shoulder, and she stroked the rim of his hat with a glowing fingertip.

Absurdly, Eliza burned to punch her in the face. She was too pretty. Too familiar with him.
He's mine, bitch. Get your whore's tricks away from him.

“Have you forgotten the rules?” The King of Rats tapped his cane on the floor to punctuate,
clack-clack! clack-clack!
“Don't follow me. Don't peek into my affairs. It doesn't take a genius. Yet here you stand.”

What a marvel,
she nearly added, with a madwoman's unseemly glee. If the Philosopher himself should suddenly crawl from the crowd and genuflect to the King, surprise would have seemed inappropriate.

The ogre woman growled and loomed menacingly, thumping a spiked club in one thick hand.

Eliza's throat crisped. “Sir, I assure you—”

“But what the hell, eh?” A beastly grin split his face. “Fuck it. Always did enjoy a wayward lass. Get up, then,” he added impatiently. “I'm not Jesus bleeding Christ. A simple how-do will suffice.”

Numbly, Eliza stumbled up, and dipped a shaky nod. “Er . . . how do you do?”

“I'm fucking fantastic.” That grin suited him, an expression of unbridled enjoyment. Made him young, roguish, and handsome. The kind of dissolute man a woman could fall for at her peril.

“She's skinny, Eddie.” The green lady's delicate nose wrinkled, and her perfume clung to the air, cloying, like sugar left too long. “All bone and no meat.” She covered her mouth with green-lit fingers and snickered,
ti-hih-hih!

“Bite your serpent tongue, woman. She's beautiful.” That note of pride. “And I see you're not alone, my sweet.”

Eliza nodded cautiously. “She's here.”

“Let me talk to her, then.”

Lizzie wriggled, eager to be free. Carefully, Eliza let out a breath, relaxed . . .

And out I come,
poppety-pop!
like a bubble in the sun.

Ahh. It's like a lungful of fresh air, so it is. Only our dress is too damn tight again, Jesus, I'm stuffed as a can of fish in here, and her spectacles make me blink like an eel. She's not far under, she can feel me breathing. It's as if we're both here, only for the moment it's me doing the talking.

I like it. It's nice to be together.

And that surprises me, when nothing else in this crazy
dungeon has raised my eyebrow. What I told Marcellus? It's true. Eliza is mine to protect.

Without that? Why, I'm disposable. Unwanted. Just one of those
accidents that happen
.

I tip my imaginary hat to the King. “Your Majesty. How do?”

“Lizzie, m'dear.” Angry, but satisfied. “We meet at last. Took you long enough.”

“Yeah, well, it ain't polite just to come blurting out like a fart.”

Eddie laughs, rich yet dangerous, edgy. “I like your color, girl. We should talk more often.”

My heart overflows, and damn it if that burning in my eyes ain't tears. I like it here. The Rats' Castle, den of the dissolute, tavern of the troubled, refuge for the royally wrecked. Can't we stay here, in this world tailor-made for freaks? I want to dive into the carousing crowd and let it swallow me. I
belong
here.

Lady Green-Tits scowls at me like I stole her ice cream and caresses the nape of his neck possessively. She's wearing long lacy gloves with the fingers cut off, and a pig on a leash snorts at her skirt hem.

I cock a saucy eyebrow back at her. “Who's she supposed to be, the Queen of Tarts?”

Eddie Rat-King lets out a bark of amusement. “Can't you tell? This is Camelot, I'm King Arthur, and she's my Guinevere.”

I give meself a mental slap over the ear. A.R. Arthur is King. Savior of the people. So far as riddles go, it ain't exactly Sphinx material. “So who does that make me? Sir Galahad?”

“Darlin', meet Eliza Jekyll and Lizzie Hyde. My daughters.”

Green-Tits glares down her pointy nose at me and says something, but I don't hear.