Tarnished Knight

CHAPTER TEN





Rip relaxed back in bed, cupping his head in his hand. His mech arm lay cold and motionless on the bed beside him. Staring at the ceiling, he listened to each creak as people sought their beds, his breath catching at each sound then releasing when he realised it wasn’t Esme.

The house fell still.

Nothing but silence, his ears almost ringing as he tried to listen to her. His rooms were directly above the kitchen, and though he could usually hear her moving about down there – indeed, he’d spent many a night listening to her – there was no sound now.

She wouldn’t have gone to her own bed, would she?

Rip frowned. That look he’d given her had spoken volumes and the little smile she’d tried to hide was as much a reply as anything she could have uttered.

He swung his legs out of bed and reached for his shirt. Dressing swiftly, he eased open the door to his room and went searching for her.

Not in her room. Nor the lower section of the house. The kitchen hearth glowed in the shadows, Esme’s apron lying forlornly on the bench. Rip picked it up, but the material was cold. An uneasy prickling ran over the back of his neck.

The back door rattled under his touch. Locked. She couldn’t be out there. Turning, he raked his gaze over the kitchen as if it would tell him where she was.

What did she do usually? Her pans were all put away, some still resting in the sink for tomorrow. Yanking open the door that led to the basement and the ice-room where Blade kept their blood chilled, he tried to scent her. Nothing.

Perhaps she’d fallen? He hurried down the stairs but there was no sign of her. The drumbeat of his heart started to kick a little harder.

“Esme?” he whispered, but nobody answered him.

Raking a hand over the stubble on his scalp he climbed back up to the kitchen. Footsteps creaked on the main stairs that led upwards and he let out a relieved breath. Finally.

Shoving through into the living room, he stopped in his tracks as Blade slowed, eyeing him curiously from the stairs.

“What are you doin’ up?” Blade asked.

“You ain’t seen Esme?” he asked, his chest tightening. “She ain’t been with you?” It wasn’t expected now that Blade took his blood from Honoria, but it was worth the question.

Blade shook his head. “No. Ain’t seen ‘er.” His voice hardened. “Why?”

“She were s’posed to stay with me tonight,” Rip blurted. “I can’t find ‘er.”

Blade’s knuckles tightened on the stair rails as they stared at each other. “She were in the kitchen,” he said finally. “Puttin’ stuff away last I saw ‘er. You keep searchin’. I’ll rouse the lads, see if anyone knows.”

His tone remained even but Rip saw the look in his master’s eyes and it chilled him to the core.

Blade thundered up the stairs and Rip turned back to the kitchen. Maybe she’d been locked out? Blade or one of the lads often performed a last check on all the doors before they went to bed. He yanked it open and stared out into the yard.

Snow gleamed in the moonlight. Enough for him to see the faint swishing trail of someone’s skirts.

Rip strode outside, his nerves itching along his skin. From the faintness of the impression, she’d been outside long enough for the snow to begin filling it.

The milk bottles were all stacked neatly in their crate. He knelt down in the shadow of the arch, fingertips pressing into a strange line. Almost… a letter. Thank God Esme had taught him to read somewhat. He traced the H with a frown. H. E. And something else that had been almost obliterated by her skirts. I? L?

H. E. L…

His blood ran cold. Help. With a surge of his thighs he straightened and stepped out into the back lane. There was no one in sight, but the trail of her skirts dragged toward the street. Rip took three steps before he smelt it.

Blood.

A little droplet of blood in the snow.

“Blade!” He was running before he knew it, his lungs seizing in his chest. No, no, no. This was his worst nightmare. He knew immediately what had happened and how. Higgins. This was just what the vindictive prick would do now that Rip and Blade had killed several of his men.

The thought made him feel sick. Not Esme. Anyone but Esme. Why the hell hadn’t she screamed? The only reason she wouldn’t have, would be if she couldn’t.

Panting, he staggered into the street. Wheel ruts and footsteps turned the snow into slush, Esme’s trail vanishing in with the echo of a thousand others. Rip spun on his heel, though he knew what he’d find. He’d been in bed for almost half an hour. More than enough time to vanish with her if someone knew how.

F*ck. He scraped his hands over his head. Not a soul lingered in the streets and the curtains were closed on most of the windows. He’d waste his time – and breath – in questioning people. Whitechapel was the sort of place where nobody ever saw anything.

“Rip?” Blade slowed down at the end of the lane, Will hard on his heels. “You seen ‘er?”

He shook his head, his throat so thick he could barely talk. “No.” The word came out hoarse and barely audible. He tried again. “It’s that Slasher. I know it. I saw some blood on the snow back there--” He lost the ability to speak again, his throat closing over completely.

“Aye,” Blade murmured, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Well, ‘e’s made ‘is mistake this time.” Eyes glittering, he surveyed the street. “We’ll get ‘er back, Rip. I swear. And then I’ll skin ‘im alive for this.”


An hour later, they met again at the junction of Petticoat Lane. Rip was drenched in the icy water of the sewers, shaking so hard he could barely stand. The rage in him was growing, the hunger creeping over him like the threatening weight of an avalanche. The only thing holding it at bay was the thought that if he lost control, he’d never find her. He needed to be rational for this.

“No sign?” Blade asked.

“Chemical,” he managed to choke out, his throat and nose burning from the smell of it. He felt like he’d never get the scent out of his nose. “One o’ those chemical bombs they been usin’.”

Will knelt in the snow, his amber eyes gleaming in the moonlight. As close to the edge as Rip in his own way. “Found nothin’,” he growled in frustration, his own eyes red-rimed. “Every tunnel stinks o’ chemical. Can’t smell a bleedin’ thing now.”

“’E planned this,” Blade muttered, staring down the street. “Knew what our strengths are. ‘Ow we work. F*ck.”

“What you want us to do?” Will asked. “Rouse the streets? See if anyone saw something?”

“That’ll take ‘ours,” Rip snapped. And Esme didn’t have that long.

How long had it taken Higgins to get her back to his hidden lair? How long to strap her to his table, to insert the needles in her veins that would slowly steal her life away? How long until she was nothing more than a dry husk of the woman she’d once been?

Rip spun and kicked at a pile of crates against the corner, sending scraps and rubbish flying. The streets became black and white; the colour of a graveyard.

Someone caught his mech wrist and he spun, prepared to lash out. Will caught his fist before it could land, yanking his arm up behind him and Rip glared into the face of his master.

“She needs you,” Blade said, letting his mech hand go. “Rein yourself in. Now.”

Rip shut his eyes and sucked in a sharp breath. Wanted to kill. Wanted to tear something apart, anything to stop this helpless, goddamned terror. His shoulders slumped as the anger and fury washed out of him. Blade was right. He was no help to Esme in this condition.

Blinking, the colour of the world snapping back in on him again, he turned to glare up into Will’s burning gaze. “Lemme go.”

Will let him go and stepped back out of reach. “Someone’s got to know where Higgin’s hides. If he’s a Slasher, he’ll be sellin’ the blood down at them drainin’ factories. Someone there buys it on the sly; they’ll know how to contact him.”

“Go,” Blade snapped. “And be quick about it. I’ll ‘unt down below again, see if I can make out any scent trail. Maybe that chemical’s wearin’ off.” He nodded at Rip. “You joinin’ me?”

Chemical.

Rip stared at him. “Where’s he getting’ the chemical from?” He took a step back, his mind suddenly reeling. Getting hard to find bodies, Rip. The sudden memory of Dr. Creavey’s examination room sprang to mind. And the breath-stealing scent of whatever he’d used to preserve those specimens in all of the jars.

The woman on the examination table, her wrists slit and her body eerily pale. Like she’d been drained of life. Rip swore under his breath. Under his nose all along and he’d not realised until now.

What better way to hide the drained bodies than to give them to someone who’d make sure they were never seen again? And would probably pay for them in the process.

“Got an idea,” he snarled. “I’m goin’ to visit an old friend.”

Blade nodded. “Move quick and watch your back. I’ll be in Undertown.”

“Aye.” They all nodded at each other.

“You see somethin’ and you whistle,” Blade said, referring to the whistle’s that would pierce through each of their hearing from miles away. Nothing human would hear them, but the sound would set dogs barking and went through Rip like an ice-pick to the brain.

“If you find nothin’, then we’ll meet back ‘ere in an ‘our,” Rip said, praying under his breath that he wouldn’t see them again until Esme was found.


Rip stepped back and placed a solid kick to the middle of the door. The wood splintered with a satisfying bang and he shoved his way through. “Creavey?” he bellowed. “You in ‘ere?”

A light flickered to life as someone hurriedly lit a lantern. Rip’s predator gaze focused on it with deathly intensity. He was moving before he thought, shoving through the door into Creavey’s personal chambers.

Photographs littered the walls. Grainy pictures of bodies on examination tables and the jars in Creavey’s lab. Rip looked away in disgust and found his prey cowering by a stuffed armchair in his stained nightgown. The lantern burned on a small table, next to a book on dissection and a pot of tea.

“Christ,” Creavey snapped. “You scared me half to death, Rip. What are you doing here at this hour?”

Rip strode forward and grabbed the doctor by the throat. He slammed him up against the wall, photographs fluttering like dying moths to the floor as he snarled.

“Where you been gettin’ your bodies from?” he snapped. “You been givin’ someone vials o’ that formalde’yde?”

The colour drained out of Creavey’s face. “Don’t know what you’re… talking about…” he choked out.

Rip leaned forward, his mech fingers closing tighter as Creavey made a strangled sound. “Gettin’ ‘ard to find bodies,” he snapped. “That’s what you said and I saw that girl what I thought done ‘erself in. Drained o’ blood. You still got ‘er? I’d be curious to know if there’s any needle marks in her elbows, or more slashes across her throat and thighs. That’s ow they do it.” He slammed Creavey back against the wall. “That’s what the Slashers do when they tie someone down.”

Suddenly he pictured Esme lying there on Creavey’s examination table, her body pale and faint bloody marks across her wrist. No. He wouldn’t be too late. He wouldn’t. The thought tore through him like a knife and as he blinked he realized Creavey was turning purple.

Rip let him go and stepped back as the man slumped to the floor, sucking in breath through his badly bruised throat. He knelt down, staring into the man’s terrified eyes. “Now, I don’t got a lot o’ time. Nor patience.” Blackness flickered behind his vision but he reined it in. Later. “You know Blade’s ‘ousekeeper?”

Creavey nodded sharply.

“The Slashers got ‘er,” Rip said in a quiet, deadly-soft voice. “And I want ‘er back. A man by the name o’ ‘iggins. You ‘eard of ‘im? You know where ‘e dwells?”

The stink of urine flooded through the room. “Can’t,” Creavey gasped. “Said he’d kill me if I said anything.”

The blackness obliterated everything. The next thing Rip knew, Creavey was screaming as Rip shoved him down onto one of the frigid steel examination tables in the laboratory. Pinning him by the throat, he yanked a small rolling table closer, with its tray of evil-looking instruments.

“e’s got my woman,” he heard himself say. “And you think ‘e’s the greater danger at the moment?” His hand closed over something sharp. He held it up. “’e might kill you. Some’d say that’d be a mercy to what I intend.”

As Creavey screamed, Rip held the gadget up. A small, razor-sharp wheel of some description. He wound the crank attached to the shaft of it and the razor suddenly started spinning, light glinting off its edges with a buzzing sound.

“Now me,” he whispered. “I don’t plan on killin’ you at all.”

Creavey’s fingers wrapped around the cold steel of his mech hand. “I’ll… tell…” Froth bubbled on his lips as his gaze locked on the gadget Rip held.

Rip stepped back.

The doctor scrambled off the table, into the corner of the room where he cowered. “I couldn’t get the bodies.” He started crying. “The Echelon’s metaljackets started patrolling the cemeteries at nights. What was I to do?”

Rip stared at him. How any man could do such a vile thing was beyond him. He flung the circular saw aside. “So you started buyin’ ‘em from the cursed Slashers?” He kicked the rolling table aside and metal implements scattered everywhere. “Knowin’ what they do to people?”

“It’s easier to examine the tissues,” Creavey whispered. “Without all the blood in the body.”

A vein in Rip’s temple throbbed. “Where is ‘e?”

“I don’t know,” Creavey sobbed. “I don’t. I swear I don’t! I just deliver the formaldehyde to the back of an apothecary in Bethnal Green. They’ve got the bodies there, hidden in a shed out the back. I think… I think there’s a tunnel down into Undertown in the shed.”

Thoughts raced through his brain; a map of the streets thereabouts. “By apothecary, do you mean opium den? Madame Liu’s?”

Creavey nodded.

Heavily defended by one of the gangs as run that part of town. Rip’s fist clenched. “Don’t you go leavin’ the area,” he snapped. “I still got words to ‘ave with you.”

Then he turned and left the doctor quivering behind him.