Willing (17 page)

Constance stood to her full height, glaring at Gregory. Berty now held his only weapon, and there were witnesses, yet Gregory didn’t so much as twitch. He stood just feet from her, smirking.

“What are my choices?”

“I’m glad you asked.” He grinned, tugging off his black gloves and tossing them into the froth of beer at his feet. “Come with me willingly and behave, and I will make sure you and your beloved Alisdair die quickly. Peacefully, if you will.”

“And if I don’t? We could go to the police. Get them to Alisdair in time.”

He raised an eyebrow. “We?”

With that he nodded to Berty and she frowned. “I’m sorry, loves.”

Constance watched as Berty plunged the long blade into Octavia’s belly, pushing her back into the cellar wall to stab her again. Constance recoiled in horror, screaming at the woman, cursing her very name as gentle Octavia slunk down against the wall, and stared into the dark cellar without seeing.

Constance curled into herself sobbing, falling against the wall, her robe soaking up the beer beneath her. “I swear to you, you will pay for this. You will fucking pay for it all!”

Berty frowned again, her eyes wet with tears as she watched from the stairs. “Just do as he says, Connie. He’ll hurt you if you don’t.”

Gregory took hold of Constance’s arm and lifted her to her feet. He pulled her close, standing several inches shorter than her, but tilting his head up to be close. “Come to the carriage like a good girl, smile for the crowd, and pretend you’re selling yourself like a good whore, and I promise you – I swear on my honor that you and Alisdair will not suffer. But if you so much as make a sound, give Alisdair or anyone even a signal that something is amiss, I will take my time with you both. Leave pieces of you from here to Cornwall. But before I do that, I’ll carve your beloved Alisdair up while you watch, and I will feed him to you.”

Constance couldn’t swallow, her throat was so tight with grief. Yet she set her jaw and met his gaze.

He released his hold and moved for the stairs. “Are you coming, dear Constance?”

Constance took a shuddering breath and walked toward the stairs. He wrapped a hand tight around her arm. She reached for Octavia, rumpled there on the floor, touching her dark hair as she passed, fighting the lump in her throat that begged for her screams, for wails of grief to be loosed and never cease. Yet she couldn’t weep. She must show a steely gaze, and meet the world unaffected. She let Gregory lead her toward the stairs, Berty stepping aside to let them pass like a spectator to a hanging. As Constance reached the stairs, she stopped, and turned to Berty.

Berty opened her mouth to speak, but before words could come, Constance spit in her face.

Gregory led her up the stairs into the tavern, chuckling softly to himself.

Chapter Thirteen

The small crowd gathered in the Keg and Barrel couldn’t help but stare as Constance was led through the bar to the waiting carriage. She didn’t have the chance to change, walking out into the streets of Whitechapel in a robe, soaked to the knees in beer. She was a spectacle even for Spitalfields. She glanced up from the carriage door just long enough to see a familiar face seated on the driver’s bench – Thomas. He met her gaze and his eyebrows shot up in silent query, but Constance steeled herself against the instinct to ask for help. His face spoke of innocence and honest concern. She forced a smile and climbed into the carriage.

Her stomach tightened all the way up to her throat when Gregory climbed in behind her.

The sound of Thomas’ calls to the horses were muffled now from inside the dark carriage. The small space quickly filled with the thick stench of beer, the silk fabric of her skirts clinging to her calves and knees, irritating the skin beneath. She did not touch them, even for the temporary comfort it might offer. There was little comfort to be found here.

Gregory took a deep breath, slumping into his seat across from her, removing his bowler hat and setting it on the seat beside him. He patted it once or twice, dusting off some imaginary thing before settling into the corner of the carriage and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Are you afraid?”

Constance stared at him, holding her breath. He asked this question with a strange, innocent curiosity, and it almost frightened her more than his threats. “I am.”

Gregory smiled to himself. “May I tell you a story?”

“Can I stop you?”

“You certainly can. I’m not going to trouble a dying woman with my drivel if she’d rather contemplation, just thought it might be nice to fill the silence with some conversation.”

He was madness incarnate, Constance now knew. He spoke with the comfort of a man on the train, chatty after a long day of travel. She licked her lips, feeling their newly chapped texture.

“You’re smarter than your profession would suggest, aren’t you?”

Constance did not meet his gaze, but kept her eyes trained on the dark window, the black screen pulled shut for privacy.

“I’ve met many women of your profession. None of them worth the air they breathed, but you – I wonder about you.”

She swallowed. Despite this quiet weight of knowledge - of incoming doom - Constance was surprisingly calm. “Should I be flattered?”

“Honestly, yes. Though I’m sure you care little for what I think.”

“You’d be correct.”

He shifted, settling himself as though for some banter with an old friend. “I remember the first girl they had me do. Young thing, bit quiet on the ride. They said get rid of her quietly, not like Kelly.”

There was that name again; Kelly. He spoke of the man he knew as the Ripper as though they’d played Cricket together in school. It turned her blood cold to hear it.

“So I took her down by the Thames. Tide was high, and she was thinking I was lookin for a little extra fun before I dropped her back at home. I brought her down the water, pointed across the way, and when she was looking for whatever fool thing I told her I saw, I put the barrel of a pistol to the back of her head and pulled the trigger. Quick like. She toppled into the water. Probably in some fish’s belly in the middle of the Atlantic by now.”

Constance shifted in her seat, turning further from him, wishing she could remove the sight of him from the corner of her eye.

“Did it that way a couple’a times. See, you girls – you’re all so keen to get the coin, you don’t think. None of you bloody well think. Stupid whores. They all came down the water with me and they all went lookin for whatever I pointed at, like a damn dog after you pretend to throw a ball. But that third one – God, I’ll never forget her.”

He wriggled in his seat, smiling and tapping his feet like a child at Christmas.

“She was special to me. She was a bit taller, Irish girl, red haired – had some Gaelic name or another. Should’ve known an Irishwoman would be trouble.”

Constance closed her eyes and swallowed – Saoirse. The girl Octavia told her about. The one with a small child.

“I did everything right, everything the same. She glanced off to the opposite side of the river, I put the gun to the back of her head, and the bloody thing jammed. She took off, running and screaming, makin such a racket.”

Constance shook her head, as though the act might shake free the images in her mind, but he continued.

“I chased her up the bank – massive, brawler of a girl – and I caught her. She fought me with everything she had, but I got my hands ‘round her throat. Did her with ma bare hands.”

He stopped a moment, staring up at the roof of the carriage as though reliving some fond memory.

“There’s something magical that happens when a woman’s eyes go still – when they’re glaring into you, pouring every last ounce of will into yours as they fight. You can see the moment they realize they’re dying, that instant when the life accepts its end, and they go still. That moment is something truly powerful. I knew then how foolish I’d been, killing these girls without being able to see their eyes.”

“You’re a monster.”

“Oh, you have no idea.”

He chuckled to himself, crossing his ankle over his knee as he ruffled the gray hair at the nape of his neck. “Before that, I was just doing a job – tying up loose ends for my employers, getting rid of these girls so they wouldn’t tell anyone what they’d seen and done. I understood. I didn’t like it, but I understood. Would be a terrible scandal for any noble family to be cavorting with whores, let alone witchcraft?”

“Alisdair wouldn’t ask you to do that. He’s a good man.”

Gregory laughed, outright. “Well of course
he
wouldn’t. He’s not my employer though, now is he?”

Constance met Gregory’s gaze for the first time. He was smiling, nodding. “I work for the circle. For names that will not be spoken. Names older than the city of London itself. I wouldn’t work for some cobbler’s son for any amount of money.”

There was a lull in Gregory’s rant. Constance relished the reprieve, hoping he was done. He wasn’t.

“I understood when they started bleeding the girls. There truly is power in that moment, when the light leaves their eyes. You can take it from them, make them look at you as they die. In that moment of release and relief, when they stop feeling the pain and the fear and simply accept death? That is the true life force;
that
is where the power lies.”

“It should be given willingly -”

“Ha! What, through sex or something? Through some
willing altar
? Alisdair is a god damned fool, reading some old bat’s mad hundred year old scribblings. Of course she says it must be given freely, she was a woman. Weak! All of you are weak.”

Constance breathed deeply through her nose, pursing her lips, willing him silent.

“You can’t give that kind of power willingly. It must be taken. Torn from them, screaming. That’s where the power lies. That is how you harness it.
That
is how you summon a God.”

“You’re wrong.”

He tilted his head from side to side. “You know, I helped carve one of the girls up, myself. She was still alive when I did it. Cut off her arm, bandaged her up good, afterward. They wanted her living and breathing - suffering. The greater the suffering the brighter the light burns before it goes out. I’ve seen that with my own eyes, I know it to be true.”

“Fucking monsters.”

“The circle is closer to success than Alisdair will ever be.”

“You’re wrong!”

Gregory met her gaze and they stared at one another for a long minute. When he finally spoke, he inspected her as each word passed his lips. “You know that’s how Alisdair’s mother died, don’t you?”

Constance’s eyes went wide and she shook her head, denying the sound as though she might will herself deaf. “Mr. Paul Newington did his lovely bride in. Slit her throat on the very altar Alisdair now prays at over you. Made the fucker a very wealthy man.”

“That can’t be true.”

“Oh, it can. See, Paul realized that this
willing altar
nonsense wasn’t working. He’d read that love should be enough to make it work. When it didn’t, he theorized that sacrificing something he loved might be the true way. Man was power hungry like no one I’ve ever known before. She never saw it coming.”

“I hate you.”

“I take great pleasure in what I do, girl. Cutting them up, letting them bleed. These aristocrats, they don’t have the stones for it. Paul did, but just the once. For some, once is all it takes. For others that can’t commit to such a deed, they hire men like Kelly – or me.”

Constance watched his face, wanting to tear it. His eyes made her cold, as though they drew the heat from her bones. It was similar to the moment she shared with Alisdair, when the buzzing under her skin became too much and she collapsed. Her body was humming with rage, and something more. Gregory seemed to hum right back.

“I understand Kelly better now. He got carried away, started leaving his girls in alleys. It was only a matter of time before he was caught. Circle sent him off with a thank you and money for passage to America. Sure he’s still practicing his trade, if I know anything at all.”

Gregory slapped his knee, as though sharing some silent joke with himself. “You know, I tried to make one girl look like he’d done it, not long ago. Did everything to the letter, studied all the papers to get her done just right. Just wasn’t the same. Taking a girl apart? That’s where the real joy is.”

Constance pressed her head to the wall, remembering the horrible images in The Star – the torso under the bridge. “Pinchon Street…”

“Ah, you’ve heard of me! Now, she was no Whitechapel slag, she was of proper breeding. Seemed more offended by my audacity than frightened by the knife when I finally started cutting her. Still not my best. You know I left one girl in the basement of Scotland Yard? Not that Scotland Yard was there, of course. Twas just a foundation at the time. Seeing that in the paper felt almost as good as doing her.”

He slumped back into his seat, sighing. “You do long for that surge of power, I tell ya. The way the men that come to your brothel long for release in the arms of a woman. Suppose to some men that release comes through an open wound, not a willing cunt.”

Her fingernails were digging ridges into the palm of her hand, she clenched so tight. She swallowed now, fighting to still the thought of her own flesh being severed like that, of her own body being found by some poor fishmonger, stinking up the embankment as she rotted away, unknown and unseen.

“By God, it was a fun one. Wasn’t even my idea!”

He tapped his feet again, as though they shared some excited exchange. “I’m not like Kelly though, I promise you. I can stop myself. I gave you my word you’d die quick, and I intend to keep it. You keep your word, I keep mine. You and Alisdair, both.”

Constance closed her eyes tight, willing him silent, but he continued.

“I’ll give you both a knick right here,” he said, and Constance felt his fingers graze against her neck. She shuddered, jerking away involuntarily.

“The knife is sharp, you’ll hardly feel it. You’ll be able to breathe, no urgency to it. Just bleed out until you fall asleep. Sweet and serene.”

“Stop it.”

“What? Would you rather not know? A gentlemen gives fair warning, does he not?”

“You disgust me.”

“Of course I do!”

Gregory reached across the carriage and tapped her knee. He was smiling. “I mean, look at ya. Most of the women I’ve done would be screaming like mad right now, making a scene. Yet, here you are, sitting tall. Letting me blather on about my exploits without so much as a whimper. I mean, Constance. I can see what he sees in you, now.”

She took another deep breath, willing it as steady as she could. “Are you done, yet?”

“Have you ever heard about Henry VIII?”

Gregory spoke as though they discussed the weather. It turned her stomach.

“I have.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me? Then you know of Anne Boleyn? How she was beheaded, yes?”

Constance nodded.

“Good old Henry. Had the poor woman slandered, accused of witchcraft and incest, locked her up in the Tower to await her fate. Yet, despite all of that injustice, she walked to that scaffolding with her head held high, met her fate with graceful acceptance; a true queen even in death.”

Constance didn’t speak. She knew this story well, her father having told her many times.

“You, dear Constance, are more a queen than any high born lady I’ve ever met.”

Constance turned to Gregory, willing her eyes to cut through him. She lifted her head, letting her full height remind him of who had the greater stature. “If these women you speak of are of your circle; ordering the murders of innocent girls in their efforts to gain
more
power, then I assure you, Gregory, the word ‘lady’ does not apply.”