The Diabolical Miss Hyde (21 page)

The Cockatrice is open, golden warmth leaking from the shuttered window. The carving above the lintel leers at me, cock's head on a dragon, and I salute it, with a wink and a fingertip to my hat brim. “Cock-a-
trice,
” I say, and laugh. “The beast with three cocks. Congratulations, sir.”

Mr. Cockatrice has nothing to say.

Inside, firelight licks the broken walls, gloats along the bar like a lover's lies. It's packed tonight, a herd of rum-swilling idiots singing a rude sea shanty, something about
the good ship Venus, by Christ you shoulda seen us,
and any glocky fool can finish
that
fuck-me-clever rhyme. A skinny cove wearing naught but a stained white undergarment crouches muttering by the bar, grabbing at his ankles and scratching his shock of white hair. A bunch of swells sprawl limp on the cushions in a stupefying hashish cloud, and that ugly little bloke with no legs trundles around them on his trolley, filching trinkets from their pockets as they sigh and drool.

Like a lazy laudanum dream, the beautiful stink of gin crawls up the walls of my mind.

I shoulder the crowd apart, cursing and kicking and prying rough hands off my backside, and push through to the bar. Scarfaced Charlie the barkeep gives a hateful grin and splashes me a tot from a dirty bottle. Eliza had Charlie's measure right enough. He ain't got no redeeming features, except maybe greed, which makes him easy game when you want something. I toss him two pennies—drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence—and sink the drink in one gulp.

Fire explodes in my belly. I shudder, delight spreading along my limbs as if I just . . . well, never you mind. I just want more, again, forever, molten gold and flame, bitter chemical oblivion. God's innards, this stuff'll be the death of me, like it's murdered so many others, cold-blooded and relentless as any razor-glitter lunatic, only you won't make no front-page story drinking yourself to ruin.

We're all hurtling towards death. Some of us just run faster.

“Lizzie, my darlin'.” Wild Johnny waves a sloshing gin bottle in my direction. Already bright-eyed with booze—or is he?—he stumbles against the bar beside me, and rights himself with a rakish bow that'd charm a lesser woman's corset off. “You flay me. Your radiance is more than I can bear. Let's get drunk and misbehave.”

“If you're buying, I'm in.”

“Naturally, madam. What do you take me for, some ha'penny sneak thief with no class?” He plonks the bottle on the bar and lets out a happy burp. “I'll have you know I'm the classiest gent in this bar.”

“Too right. A ten-quid sneak thief is what you is. Nothing but the best.”

“I'll drink to that.”

But my stomach knots, spoiling my high, and for the first time, his suggestive rosy scent squirms tiny roots of threat into my veins. I might have teased Eliza with what we done, but truth is? I were deep in my cups t'other night. I don't right remember what went on, only that Johnny and me was sharing gin and laudanum, and he kissed me and it tasted of sadness, and something about his pretty hair and then Eliza woke up on the cushions, alone.

Damn it. Eliza would scold me for a fool. And for once, she'd be right.

We clink cups and swallow, and he feints at me with his flirtiest grin. He's wearing a different coat, a long dusty blue one, and too late I remember Eliza took the other. Shoulda brought it back. Shoulda left a lot of things the way they was.

But Johnny ain't never so plastered—nor so vague—as he makes out. He studies me with crooked black eyes and
scratches behind one pointed ear like a puppy, his tangled hair flopping. “What?”

My skin itches. I ain't got time for about-last-night. I need to quiz him about Jemima, find out what the hell happened to Billy Beane.

Because I ain't right sure about that, neither, despite what Eliza might think. I like gin, for sure. But I never claimed it for my friend, and like a treacherous lover it keeps secrets from me.

I sigh. “Look. Um . . . what happened, t'other night? You and me, I mean.”

He licks his teeth, considering. “What do you want to have happened?”

Jesus, Johnny. Why you gotta be so damned
nice
? “How about . . . we wiped ourselves clean on laudanum, and passed out?”

A loose-limbed fey shrug. “Then that's what happened.”

Is he lying? Did his gaze slip? I'm too damn tired and antsy to know. I gulp another gin and snort. “Yeah, well, while we was busy not happening, your bloody squeeze turned snout, didn't she?”

His warm gaze crackles over with frost. “What?”

“Jemima told the crushers I did for Billy Beane.”

“Did you? What a shame. Sounds like a win all round to me.”

“That's as may be, but I ain't swinging for something I never done.” I lean over both elbows on the bar, and glance sideways and back again before I lower my voice. “Billy was a crusher's moll. They can't let it go unpunished. They'll find someone to blame. You have to help me, Johnny.”

And I know he will.

I play with him. I use him. I break his lonesome heart. But
I know in my crusty black soul that this sweet-natured lad won't never let me down.

Johnny, God love him, is my friend. And more fool he.

My eyes burn, and I blink them clear.

Johnny shrugs again and drops his voice, too, that practiced criminal's murmur that carries over flash house noise, but only to the person it's meant for. “You asked me where Billy was, then I never seen you for maybe a quarter hour. That's it. Don't know anything more.”

“And you heard nothing?” I demand softly. “No hue and cry? Weren't no blood, nothing like that?”

“Nope. You had dirt on your dress and a bruise on your forehead. I figured you walked into something. You know how bloodthirsty doorways can be around here.”

I frown, poking my foggy memory for what I
do
recall. The yard, damp night air on my bare thighs, stinky Billy a-fumble under my skirts. Greedy steel murmuring in my hand . . . and
wumph!

Distant pain swells my forehead, an echo of injury past, and a ghostly green shadow blots out my breath.

My mind reels like a drunken fiddler. “Someone came into the yard and hit me,” I blurt out. “Not Billy. Someone else. They must've seen something.”

“Well, it weren't Jemima,” says Johnny. “Not while you was out back. She and I held a short but fiery palaver. I'm ashamed to say that bad words were spoken.” He tugged his hair, sheepish. “Such is love.”

“But the crushers still think I done it.” I slam twin fists on the bar, dazzled like winter sunshine with fresh anger. “Jemima better keep her eyes peeled for me.”

Johnny slops more gin into my cup and swills his own. “Be easy on her,” he says, but a shadow over his voice tells me Jemima better look out for him, too. “She might be glocky, but she's not blind.”

“Thought you said nothing happened.” But my face feels hot, and it ain't no virgin blush. I could snaffle Jemima's fancy man in an eye-blink, and don't she know it. I'd have done the same as her, if some uppity skirt were sniffing her snotty nose around my bloke. In Seven Dials, a girl fights for what's hers, or in a twinkle it ain't hers no more.

“
You
said nothing happened. Can't speak for what 'Mima thinks.” Johnny edges closer, a sly thief's glide. “But I've a thing that might interest you, so I do.”

“Oh, aye? What'd that be?”

He unfolds one long-fingered hand. In his palm lies a pocket watch. Mother-of-pearl face and black hands, dirt crusted around its dented silver rim.

I squint, puzzled. “A cheap ticker? You shouldn't have.”

“A ticker, cheap,” agrees Johnny airily. “Recently belonging to Billy the loudly lamented Bastard. Passed on to me this morning—in good faith, naturally, the fellow must've dropped it, these things happen all the time—by my fine friend . . .” He sighs artfully. “Well, perhaps you ain't interested after all. Let me buy you another gin, sweet ruby Lizzie, and we'll wallow the night away in decadence and gay abandon.”

His suggestion is too alluring. Too tempting, when you're drowning, to scream
damn it all
and sink to your death.

But I need to swim. To stay sober, or thereabouts. Because Eliza needs me.

Fancy that.

Secret starlight warms my heart. I'm used to being the dark half, the beast in the closet, the mad wife in the attic with fleas in her hair. But Eliza needs me now. And screw me raw if I'll let her down.

I'm teetering on a precipice, breathless on the brink of a chasm of dark unknown. And it feels . . .

I clear my throat. Hell, we've only got one body between us, right? If the crushers bone Miss Lizzie, it'll be Doctor Eliza in the Bow Street lock-up come morning, and from there it'll be questions and fists and a swift bumpy ride to the Tower, courtesy of the god-rotting Royal. Even Eliza's hoity-toity detective friend can't help us, once they tumble to what we is.

If they burn her, I'm just as dead. Right?

I sigh and pull out a golden sovereign, let it catch the light.

Johnny's smile gleams. He makes the coin vanish—no, really—and now the watch is gone, too, into his pocket or up his sleeve or who knows where. I catch a flowery whiff of spelldust.

“Sally Fingers,” says he.

“The moll buzz?” I know her, by reputation at least. Half the trick in picking pockets—especially ladies' pockets—is looking as if you belong, and it ain't only the lads who go out square-rigged with the swell mob.

“The very same. Seems you wasn't the only one after a slice of Billy's hide that night.”

“What d'you mean?”

He shrugs, as if that particular piece of gossip is beneath him, and drinks. “Ask her yourself. She's working the Strand tonight with Jimmy the Chink.”

“I'll do that.” I drain my cup, bang it down, stretch my neck with a
crunch!
Time for a nice evening stroll. Little Sally Fingers better 'fess up quick, for Miss Lizzie and her shiny steel sister ain't feeling patient tonight.

“Lizzie? Can I ask you something?”

And here it comes.

“I already told you,” I grumble for cover, “I ain't marrying your sorry fairy arse.”

“And right sorry my fairy arse is for it, too. But not that.” Johnny's lopsided gaze is shrewd again, sharper than the gin he's swilling should allow. Not for the first time, I'm envious. Sweet lord, the lad can put it away, only Johnny drinks because he can, not because he must. “A lady came looking for Jemima yesterday. Pretty yellow hair, in a gray dress. Don't suppose you know aught of that?”

Foggy memory haunts me, shadows behind glass.
Don't I know you, lady?
And then he'd turfed brave Eliza into the street, out of harm's way.

Protected her, when he could've fleeced her for every bright thing she carried and dumped her in a gutter for the rats.

Does sweet Johnny wonder where I go? Where I vanish to, for days or weeks on end, never to be seen? Then all of a moment I'm back, swilling gin and flirting like no time has passed at all.

And then Eliza shows up, a creature of sunshine with shadows in her heart—with
me
in her heart, chewing around like a specter hungry for souls—and Johnny's delicate fey senses light up like fireworks.

He
knew
her.

Shit.

I shrug, faking like I don't care, but cold spiders scuttle down my spine. “Nope. Why?”

“Thought I made her face, is all.” He shrugs again. “Maybe some lady I tooled over once.”

“Aye. Some copper's fakement, most like.”

“Most like.” He watches me a breath longer, then jerks his head towards the door. “Get on with you, you'll miss Sally.”

I bite my lip. He don't have to believe my lies. “Johnny?”

“Mmm?”

So many things I ought to say. Tell him some lie about Eliza, shake him off this dangerous scent. Tell him to go home, buy Jemima a trinket or a new dress, take her to bed and forget about me, because I can't never be his, not when I'm only half a person and the lesser half at that.

Tell him the truth. If one man in this ugly world would stand by Miss Lizzie through anything . . .

Or even just say
I'm sorry
.

But I ain't. Miss Lizzie ain't sorry, any more than she's sober. And somehow, that stings sharpest of all.

I muster a grin, and my cheeks ache with the lie. “Thanks for the gin.” And I walk out before he can reply.

The streets are black and grimy, thick with smoke and the expectant scent of a storm. Shadows leap and snigger down dark alleyways and beneath the eaves of crooked tenements, and the unseen moon drags a swell of excitement from my blood. The outdoor air feeds the fire in my soul, and I sink comfortably into my skin. That aching stab of conscience seems a distant dream.

I skip a few steps and twirl, my skirts fanning out. My stiletto murmurs and winks against my thigh. I realize I'm laughing, wild and high-pitched laughter like a madwoman's, and I cover my mouth to make it stop.

When you
change,
like us, the moon calls to you, and like that old Greek bastard in Razor Jack's painting—what's-'is-name, the cove who sailed his ship past the Sirens—if you don't rope yourself to the mast and stuff beeswax in your ears, you'll jump to your death.

Bittersweet fever licks me a-shiver inside, but it ain't me who shivers at the thought of
him
. It's Eliza, and her secret, wistful dreams.

God help her. Miss Lizzie likes a challenge, so she does, and I admit I ain't averse to a tasty slice of forbidden fruit. But when it comes to that bloodthirsty red-haired loon, it's Eliza who's blind. I've told her often enough—screamed at her, Jesus, that razor blade against her cheek I won't soon forget—but she don't listen. It's as if she don't even
hear
.