The Diabolical Miss Hyde (46 page)

Beside the creature lay a full-length operating table, empty. Shining steel, a gutter down each side to catch the blood. Suturing tools—thread, curved needles, scissors—were laid out meticulously. Surgical instruments, too. Scalpels, clamps and tourniquets, a bone saw, a long-bladed knife. Swabs for blood were piled neatly. On the floor sat a bucket half-filled with sand.

Instruments for amputation.

In a jar of preserving fluid floated a pair of bloodied eyeballs. Ragged red nerves dangled. The irises were green, pale,
startled. Mortified. As if their owner's last thoughts were fixed there forever.

All the creature needed was a head.

Transfixed, Will stroked the creature's pale thigh. “Isn't she lovely? It took me a few practice pieces to get the stitching just right. Oh, you needn't worry,” he added, seeing Eliza's expression. “About our marriage bed, I mean. I've tested it most scientifically. This body and I have a certain . . . affinity. I'm confident it'll be the same with your head on.”

Unwelcome images flooded, of Will and Lucy, doing sordid things in the filthy darkness of the asylum. Bared flesh, juddering teeth, grunts . . . “You horrid boy,” she burst out. “You're supposed to be taking
care
of them.”

Will wrenched her elbow cruelly. “Don't test me,” he hissed, spit flecking from his growing teeth. “This is all for you. I loathe ingratitude.”

Red rage boiled over her eyes. Her shadow swelled like a monster, bursting out,
I
burst out, juddering and fuming and growling alive and fuck me, I've had enough of this rotten little weasel's attitude.

“Oh, aye?” says I. “Well, I loathe dirty murdering squeezers who screw sick girls for a thrill. How'd you like
them
apples?”

“Oh, no, you don't.” Sinclair's face twists, and his nose pulls longer, into a snout. “I killed Billy Beane for her sake, not yours. Bring her back.”

I cackle, just to enrage him more. “Eliza don't want you, idiot. Never did, never will.”

He shakes me, growling, his hair sprouting wild. “Bring her
back,
whore.”

“Look at them two. Go on, look.” I jerk my chin at Athos and d'Artagnan over there on the bench. “More wit and grace in their spit than in the whole of your weedy little idiot's body. Jesus in a gin palace, do you really think
you
could win a woman like her? Don't make me heave.”

“I want Eliza. Bring her back!” He drags me towards the operating table. Damn, he's stronger than he looks. I kick and lose my footing, but he just wraps a fist in my hair and keeps right on dragging. Grabs a bottle of golden liquid, uncorks it with his teeth. Slops some onto a swab and forces it over my mouth.

My blood howls. It's the drug. The knock-out medicine. I snarl and spit and shake my head like an angry lion, but he smothers my nose and jams his knee into my guts.

Uhhh!
My lungs cramp, and I can't help but take a fat gulp . . .

But it ain't cherry blossoms.

It's bitter, like Eliza's remedy. Like the stuff she gives to the lunatics to keep them calm. To banish their shadow.
Lux ex tenebris.

Oh hell.

I fight. I really do. But no matter how much I cough and spit, I can't stop the drug seeping into my blood. My vision pinwheels. I can't breathe. I'm shrinking, the shadow is writhing and screaming, smaller and smaller, and like a black rubber ball it squeezes unbearably tight . . .

And
pop!
Eliza's eyes snapped open.

She wriggled furiously in Will's grip.
Lizzie!

But Lizzie was gone. Eliza was on her own.

Will grinned, ghoulish. “Better. Your Mr. Finch truly is a genius. It's fleeting, unfortunately, with painful side effects. But it's amazing stuff.” He helped her stand and smoothed her skirts for her. “Come, it's time. This won't take long. I've practiced over and over, you know. I can take off a head in two minutes.”

Human heads in the Thames!
recalled Eliza dully. The Moorfields Monster. He'd been practicing, all right.

“Trickier when the patient's alive,” added Will, “but still, one adapts and overcomes.” And he ushered her towards dead Lucy and the glistening operating table.

“Let go!” She struggled. No use. This beast-Will had a grip like a brass Enforcer. Lightning erupted, brain-rattling, and blue current crackled around the dome's rim. The floor quaked. Will paid no heed. When he reached the table, he bent to lift her . . .

Eliza rammed her knee into his groin.

He retched and staggered. She whirled and ran.

And collided with a tough-muscled body.

Mr. Todd trapped her in front of him, one warm arm around her waist. “Let's re-evaluate, shall we, William?”

Shock trickled ice water into her blood. Her heart pounded. How had he gotten free? Lafayette still struggled on the bench in his leather casing, but a wry smile turned his lips. A few feet away on the floor, next to Mr. Todd's unlocked shackles, lay a twisted sliver of dark metal.

A hair pin.

Her skin tingled with reluctant, black admiration. That lamp-lit book room, his fingers brushing her waist, the spidery walk of his breath across her loosened hair . . .

He'd wanted the pin. The rest of that tragic little scene? Academic. A tease. A lie.

Behind her, she felt him smile. She didn't need to see. She just knew.

She'd never get out of here alive.

Will coughed, sucking in his breath at last. His yellow eyes burned in jealous rage. “Give her back. Eliza, my love, come to me.”

“Oh, I think not,” remarked Todd carelessly. His grip on her waist shifted, and a metallic chill sparkled against her throat.

It warmed rapidly with her body heat. With a sinking stomach, she risked a glance at the plate of surgical instruments. One was missing. Not the scalpel. The long-bladed knife.

Irony choked her.
One makes do,
after all.
Trust me,
he'd said.

How she'd wanted to believe him.

“Here we are at last.” Todd licked his lips, that tiny provocative sound. His scent—so many velvet memories—made her shiver and burn. “I confess, I've often dreamed about this. Since you kindly turned me over to your energetic friends at the Met, that is. And just when we were getting on
so
well.”

Her primeval brain screeched nonsense.
Run! Scream! Fight! Roll over!
But none of it would save her. Not from him.

Or from herself.

But her breath hurt her chest, and she swallowed. She wasn't ready to die. “I had no choice.”

Todd inhaled delicately, smelling her storm-damp hair. “Mmm. That's not true. You said unkind things about me, Eliza. A lesser man might want revenge.”

“No!” Will's eyes glistened with tears, and he fumbled for his pistol. Long claws juddered from his thumbs, curling around the iron grip. His voice dived in pitch, a lisping growl. “It isn't fair. You can't have her. Not after all this. You promised. Give her back!”

“Don't be needy, William,” scolded Todd. “It only makes you ugly and irritating. Come, we all know you won't shoot me. Especially not while I'm holding such a valuable shield.”

Will cursed and clutched the pistol tighter. Sweat poured into patches of fur on his face. His nose had distorted into an inhuman snout with teeth curving up like tusks. “Don't make me angry, Mr. Todd,” he snarled, a rain of spit flying. “Don't make me become this
thing
. Please, I just want her back. Give her to me.”

Todd clicked his tongue, pretending to consider. “Seems high-handed, don't you think? I can't abide bad manners. What say . . . we leave it up to the lady?”

Eliza swallowed, a warm sting of steel. “That won't be necessary—”

“I'm afraid I must insist you choose.” Todd laughed, as black and empty a sound as she'd ever heard. “You had your chance to end me, Eliza. You wasted it. Now, either you go with Will, and live a long and dismal life as that cold undead thing over there. Or, you stay with me”—he traced the knife lightly under her chin, a tiny electric shock—“and I carve your pretty flesh into a warm and lovely work of art.”

So it comes to this.

Shock didn't seem appropriate. Nor fear, nor despair. Ever since that warm velvet night in Chelsea, she'd known he'd be her death. No point crying about it now.

She choked on stupid laughter. That was something Lizzie might say.
You're screwed right and proper, missy, screwed to the wall, and you might as well just accept it.

Whatever her fate, Lizzie would share it. It wasn't fair. What would Lizzie choose? Life at any cost? Or a swift end?

Overhead, lightning crashed, blinding. Current crackled along the dome's metal-studded struts. Behind her, Lafayette growled, a wolfish curse. Was he
changing,
in the storm's flashing fire, with wind whirling and thunder dragging madness from his blood? She felt half-mad herself, crazed, reckless.

Life as an undead monster? Or a quick death?

Will shook his ragged yellow hair, sweat flying on the wind. His face—that young, earnest face she'd been so fond of—had become but half a man's . . . yet still not fully warped by the beast inside. “Only you can save me, Eliza,” he pleaded. “Without you, I can't control it. I can't make it stop. Be my perfect wife. Please.”

And in a glassy flash of unreason, she knew what she must do.

She closed her eyes. Inhaled the stormy air once more, the tingle of power along her skin, the knife's sweet sting on her throat. Basked in Mr. Todd's strange-scented fever, imagined one more time trailing her lips over his silken hair. Listened to a few more beats of his secret heart.

Will screamed, coarse fur sprouting on his cheeks. “Stop it. Don't make me change. I don't like it. Don't . . .”

Heedless of the sharp knife, she twisted in Mr. Todd's embrace. Gazed up into his bloodshot green eyes, drank in his wild crimson locks, his sharp nose, the delicate lines of his chin. A stubborn knot in her heart dissolved—
melted,
a flood of breathless release—and if it was her common sense, or her will to resist, or just long months of pretending that died, she couldn't say.

She knew only that it felt right.

“Kill me.” The whisper slipped out, gentle as her first sighing breath and as perfect.

Mr. Todd tightened his embrace, a secret space for them alone. Outside this magical bubble, the storm no doubt still raged, but Eliza heard nothing and no one.

“Thank you.” His whisper brushed her cheekbone, alive like spelldust. He dipped his forehead to hers, a childlike gesture of surrender, and traced his blade point in sparkles down the vein in her throat. Her pulse swelled, searching, pleading, and entranced in a fairy-lit dream, she tilted her chin up . . .

Lightning slashed the sky, a hellish boom of thunder. The moment shattered, a magic mirror in shards. And Will howled,
aah-OOOH!
like a moonstruck fiend, and lost control.

His body strained and shuddered, fury upon stormlight upon hungry curse. His fangs crunched, spit dripping from mottled jaws. His arms erupted in muscle and fur, tearing his shirtsleeves to shreds. His hands contorted, his thumb joints popped backwards into
toes . . .
and the glittering pistol dropped from his grip.

And swift as a striking cobra, Mr. Todd hurled Eliza at him.

Crunch!
She and Will collided, knocking her breath away. Will skidded backwards . . . and fell onto the metal frame atop Miss Lucy.

The frame swung under his weight, and he scrambled to climb off. But a snarling pile of fur and claws hurtled through the air and landed on top of Will, pinning him down. Lafayette, wolf-turned, his leather restraints burst apart.

The two beasts roared and dived for each other. Fangs clashed, and blood splattered in arcs.

Eliza dived for Will's fallen pistol. But Mr. Todd was quicker. With a snap of his wrist, he hurled his knife. It flew in a spinning steel arc and sliced a taut rope in half.

Twang! Whizz!
A counterweight whistled downwards. And the metal frame hurtled skywards, taking Will and Lafayette with it.

Chains rattled,
zingg!!
Webs of ropes and wires snapped. The weight crashed into the floor, splinters flying. And the frame clanged into the iron-studded rafters and stuck there. The wolf-things snapped and clawed, drawing blood.

Crack!
Lightning struck the dome. Bethlem quaked to its foundations. Blue fire crackled along the lightning rod and raced earthwards. Wolf-Lafayette roared and leapt into space, brandishing wicked claws.

He hit the grounding cable, and
ping!
it snapped. And blue electricity speared down the broken wire and stabbed Wolf-Will in the heart.

He screamed, his fur alight. Skin melting, muscles liquefying, bones popping in extreme heat. The stink of burning
flesh fell like rain, and Will and headless Miss Lucy roasted together into a black husk of charred meat.

Lafayette landed on all fours,
thud!
He arched his back to howl at the storm, and the triumphant storm howled back.

Dazed, Eliza backed off. The pistol slipped in her sweaty palms. Now what?

But Lafayette—always somehow “he
,
” never “it”—just growled softly, tongue lolling. He paced a few steps, back and forth like a caged lion, his lean golden body rippling. His tail bristled and twitched, unsettled. One restless forepaw clawed the floor. His gaze never left hers all the while . . . but it shone clear, intelligent, impossibly blue.

And with a groan of cosmic surrender, the clouds broke and rain fell. Cold, diamond raindrops, pelting onto her upturned face. The burning dome hissed, and static crackled, lighting the falling raindrops like a web of fairy lanterns.

Only then did Eliza jerk to her senses and glance around, her treacherous heart skipping all over again.