The Heartless City (34 page)

His father gripped the gun tighter, but his eyes were filling with tears.

“You tried not love me,” Elliot said, stepping closer. “But you do. You couldn’t stop, just like I couldn’t stop loving you, or Iris, or Cam, or Andrew, or Philomena, or any other person who’s bound to my heart. I used to think that made me weak, but I know it’s the opposite now. Real bravery is facing and embracing what you feel.” He walked even closer, stopping only inches away from the gun. “I’ve always looked up to you,” he said, looking straight into his eyes. “And I know deep down you’re brave enough to accept the things you feel, to face your fears and finally do the right thing for this city.”

“Only one person in London decides what’s right or wrong for the city.”

The air stilled as they all looked up to the top of the Grand Staircase, where the Lord Mayor was resting his arm against the bannister.

“Virginia Carroll,” he said as he started down the stairs, his confidence and triumph so bright they nearly blinded Elliot from where he stood on the floor. As soon as his vision cleared, however, he noticed something strange: the Lord Mayor’s gait as he descended was smooth and even. Only a few hours ago, he’d been limping in terrible pain. How could his ankle have possibly healed in that brief amount of time?

“I must commend you,” the Lord Mayor continued to Virginia. “I truly thought you were dead. No one else has ever fooled or evaded me for so long.” He reached the first floor and strolled toward her, a dark smirk on his face. “Of course, I can’t imagine what kind of life you must have been living, the terrible ways you must have had to degrade yourself to survive.” He stopped and glanced at Iris, who was standing right beside her. “The guards informed me that this is your daughter,” he said, his smirk deepening. “I must admit I didn’t see the resemblance until now. Although I suppose it only makes sense for one bitch to beget another.”

“There’s only one bitch in this room, and it’s you,” a fearsome voice rang out, and everyone turned to see Philomena glaring at the Lord Mayor. He chuckled and strode toward her.

“Now, now, Miss Blackwell,” he said with a tsk. “I will not have such language from my future daughter-in-law.”

“That will never happen.”

“I assure you that it will. You’ll marry my son and bear me titled grandsons within the year.” He looked her over and shook his head. “Of course, we’ll have to do something about that mouth of yours.” He sighed. “Even well-bred horses have to be broken, I suppose, and if Cambrian can’t do it―”

But he didn’t get to finish, because Philomena raised her chin and spat right into his face. He stumbled backward and wiped his cheek, too stunned to react at first, but then rage flooded his veins, and he snapped the back of his hand across her mouth with brutal force. She flew to the floor, spitting blood, and Albert screamed and charged toward them. The Lord Mayor drew his gun and fired at Albert’s chest. The shot tore through the air, and Albert collapsed immediately, his blood spilling out all over the lush, red velvet carpet. Philomena shrieked, “Alby!” and Elliot’s father rushed toward him, but then the Lord Mayor turned and swung the gun in his direction.

“Leave him be.”

“Harlan, you just shot an unarmed man!”

“He was about to attack me.”

“His wrists were bound behind his back! And he only did it because you assaulted a little girl in chains!”

“I’m growing rather tired of your squeamishness, Frank.” The Lord Mayor sighed. “It’s a nuisance that’s beginning to outweigh your usefulness.”

Elliot’s father froze, fear and horror stilling his heart. “For God’s sake, Harlan, let me help him. It might not be too late.”

“The penalty for attacking one’s king is death.”

“Attacking one’s…
king
?”

“Toss me your gun, Frank. Now.”

Elliot’s father glanced at his hand as if he’d forgotten his pistol. He looked back up at the Lord Mayor, who still had his gun trained on him, and after a beat, he swallowed and tossed the weapon at his feet.

“Thank you, Frank,” the Lord Mayor said, retrieving the gun and sliding it into the pocket of his coat. “If there’s one thing I’ve always liked about you, it’s your practicality.”

“What did you mean by ‘king’?” he asked again.

“Just what I said. London belongs to
me
. I am its total and absolute ruler.”

“You are a coward!” Elliot cried, looking up from Albert’s crumpled frame and glaring at him.

“And you,” the Lord Mayor replied, “should have been dead four hours ago.” He started toward him, but then he changed his mind and walked to Iris, who was standing on the other side of Albert and Philomena. “Both of you should,” he said, raising an eyebrow as he approached her. “I must admit, I’m interested in knowing how you escaped, and why in the world you dared to bring a Hyde to your mother’s home.”

He smiled and glanced at Andrew, who was standing to Iris’s right, but then his mirth and self-assurance suddenly dissolved, and he creased his brow and turned back to Iris, studying her face.

“But you wouldn’t,” he murmured, almost to himself. “You aren’t mad. Perhaps you’d risk your own life, but you wouldn’t endanger your mother’s. You wouldn’t have let Andrew near her unless…”

His blood cooled as he glanced over his shoulder at Elliot, whom Cam had always accused of being a hopeless, open book.

“Christ,” he breathed, turning back to Iris. “I’m right. He’s cured.” He strode to Andrew and stared down into his face. “But how is that possible? What on earth could have cured you while you were locked inside that basement? Nothing was even down there but my tools and the three of you…” His voice died, and his face blanched as he slowly turned back to Iris. “Unless the girl who can heal herself can heal other people as well.”

The silence that filled the room was all the answer the Lord Mayor needed.

“Well,” he said, breathing a stupefied laugh as he approached her. “I suppose that’s one more reason to rid myself of you.”

Virginia screamed, and Iris jumped as the Lord Mayor raised his gun.

“I’m sorry, my dear, but I don’t think you’ll heal from a bullet wound to the head.”

He cocked the gun, and Elliot bolted toward him, blinded by terror, but the Lord Mayor flew to the ground.

Tackled by Elliot’s father.

The two men howled and screamed as they grappled for the gun, which Elliot’s father eventually managed to smack from the Lord Mayor’s hand. Elliot dashed toward it and kicked it out of the Lord Mayor’s reach, but he kicked too hard, and it soared through the air and landed behind a sofa. He looked back down at his father, who had nearly succeeded in snatching his own gun back from the Lord Mayor’s pocket, but the then Lord Mayor struck a massive blow to his father’s face, knocking him onto his back with nearly supernatural force. Once he was free, the Lord Mayor rose, drew the gun, and aimed it at Elliot.

“No!” Elliot’s father cried. He leapt to his feet and lunged between the Lord Mayor and his son, his love so strong that Elliot nearly stumbled in its wake.

“Step aside, Frank,” the Lord Mayor said, his voice as hard as his eyes. “I could kill you for what you just did, but I don’t want to do that. We’ve known each other a long time, and there are still some ways in which you could make yourself useful to me. But Elliot knows too much, and he’s proven he can’t be trusted.”

Elliot’s father straightened his back. “You’ll have to kill me first.”

The Lord Mayor laughed and shook his head. “You’re both pathetic. This is the perfect example of how compassion makes men weak.” He cocked the gun and aimed at Elliot’s father. “Have it your way.”

In the graveyard on the night that Iris and Elliot first met, Iris attacked the charging Hyde by jumping onto its back and slitting its throat with a knife from her boot, and at that moment―as Elliot stared at the Lord Mayor over his father’s shoulder―the same scene unfolded like a dream before his eyes. Iris, who had apparently freed her hands during the fray, leapt up onto the Lord Mayor’s back and dragged the scalpel from Mansion House across his open throat.

Elliot and his father stumbled backward as blood sprayed the air, and the Lord Mayor dropped the gun and clutched his throat in his hands. He slumped to his knees, emitting a strange and horrible gurgling sound, and then his body went limp. He collapsed facedown on the floor and lay completely motionless in a pool of his own blood.

Iris let out a strangled breath, staring down as if she couldn’t believe what she’d just done. Elliot stared as well, his chest swelling with stunned relief, and then his father spun around and clutched him, compounding the feeling.

“Are you all right?” he murmured, and Elliot nodded, unable to speak. His father drew back, reached inside his pocket, and pulled out a key. “I’m going to look at the footman,” he said, inserting the key into Elliot’s handcuffs and freeing his tender wrists. “Here, take this and unlock the others.” Then he ran to Albert.

Still dazed, Elliot rushed to Andrew and Virginia, released their bonds, and tossed the open cuffs onto the floor. Then he approached Philomena, who was on still her knees beside Albert, her face streaked with tears, and her lower lip caked with blood. He sucked in a breath, fighting her pain and fear as he freed her wrists. Once he was done, she reached for Albert, but Elliot’s father stopped her.

“Let’s get his hands free first,” he said, taking the keys from Elliot and unlocking Albert’s cuffs. Once they were off, he turned him over and slid his coat from his shoulders, then bunched it up to firmly press the fabric against the wound. The blood, however, was everywhere, and Albert’s face was pale and slack. Elliot lowered his head and closed his eyes.

It was too late.

Philomena covered her face and sobbed into her hands, and Iris wrapped her arms around her and pulled her against her chest. Elliot stood and stepped away, consumed by the rising grief, but then a low groan sounded just a few steps behind him. He furrowed his brow and turned around, but there was nothing there―nothing but the Lord Mayor’s bleeding, lifeless body. Shaking his head, he turned back, but then he heard the sound again, and this time when he looked, he froze.

Because the body moved.

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out at first―not even air. His throat was dry, his lips were numb, and his feet were off the floor. He watched, completely paralyzed, as the Lord Mayor started to rise, crawling up out of the pool of his own blood and onto his feet. Once he was standing erect, he wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve, staring out at Elliot through the mask of blood.

And smiling.

“F―father!” Elliot cried, finally finding his voice, and the blast of terror behind him let him know they’d all looked up.

“How,” his father choked. “How in God’s name―”

“It’s simple Frank.” Smirking, the Lord Mayor lifted his chin and wiped the blood from his throat. The flesh that Iris had just sliced open was now completely intact. “Miss Faye―I mean, Miss Carroll,” he said, “is no longer the only person in London who can heal.”

“My God,” Virginia murmured, edging forward. “That’s why you took her blood.”

“How very astute, Virginia,” he said. “You may be a treacherous bitch, but I must admit you’re a sharp one.”

“What do you mean?” Iris asked her mother. “What did he do with my blood?”

“Fashioned a serum,” the Lord Mayor replied. “My own creation. For years, I’ve been trying to find a way to obtain a Hyde’s abilities without becoming infected. I’ve crafted other serums out of the blood I’ve taken from Hydes, but every time I tested them on people who weren’t infected, the subjects simply ended up becoming Hydes themselves. One of them was the younger brother of that stable boy―the one who killed Andrew’s father―which I probably should have seen coming.”

Elliot trembled as violent rage erupted in Andrew’s heart, and they started forward, but then the Lord Mayor picked up the bloody gun.

“When Iris fell into my lap,” he continued, wiping it off on his trousers, “I knew that she could finally be the answer to my prayers. Once we’d tested her powers and made certain she wasn’t infected, I took her blood and used it to make her abilities my own.”

“You are a monster!” Elliot cried, unable to fight the rage around him and too disgusted to care. “A thousand times more of a fiend than Dr. Jekyll ever was!”

The Lord Mayor laughed. “What I am is invincible. Throw in immortality, and I’m very nearly a god.” He raised the gun and aimed it at Iris. “And I am a jealous god. One that will not only have no others before me, but none at all.”

At that moment, Elliot formed one final, desperate plan. He lunged forward and grasped the Lord Mayor’s free hand in his own, pushing every feeling in the room into his body―Iris’s panic, Virginia’s fear, Andrew’s rage, Philomena’s grief, his father’s horror, and even his own wild and frantic despair. Eventually, he even managed to dredge up Cam’s crippling shame, closing his eyes and sharing every last bit with the Lord Mayor. He knew that once he felt the pain and misery he’d caused, he would have no choice but to reconsider his actions. When he opened his eyes, however, the Lord Mayor was sneering down at him, completely unmoved and feeling nothing at all but vague disgust.

“You fool,” he said, shaking him off. “You think I care what you feel?”

Elliot stumbled backward, all the air in his lungs dissolving. Iris was right―empathy couldn’t solve heartlessness on its own. A person could know exactly how another person was suffering and still choose to look the other way and do nothing about it. The scent of blood hit his nose as the Lord Mayor raised the gun, pointing it directly at the spot between his eyes. His father screamed, and Iris’s distant figure started toward him, but he knew that there was nothing she could do to save him now. He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes, and a gunshot split the air.

But then… nothing happened. No sudden blow, no oblivion.

Elliot blinked and opened his eyes to see the Lord Mayor still before him, but the gun slipped from his hand, and he slumped down onto the floor, his body completely inert.

And the back of his head blown away.