“Here now, why so rude? I’m just offering you a bit of business before you get to the Boulware.”
Her cloak fluttered. There was an audible sound of bones cracking. The man screamed and staggered away from her, his arm bent at an unnatural angle.
One of the men trailing her darted forward and the woman spun to face him. He realized none of his friends had come along and stopped. The woman’s hand darted out like a viper. Strong fingers collected his threadbare coat at the collar. She lifted the man off the ground and swung him against a lamppost. The man’s breath whooshed out so he couldn’t scream.
The woman slammed him against the iron post a second time. He struggled in her grip. The man’s head clanged against the lamp twice, then again. His fellows backed away, gaping with disbelief as the woman battered their friend bloody. Finally she lifted him with one hand over her head and threw him to the pavement. He grunted and rolled into a ball, a pool of blood spreading from his head. She whirled back to her original course, unmindful now of the amazed crowd who watched her from the street and from many windows. None tried to stop her.
Around the corner, as promised, was the Boulware Club. It was a sagging old Restoration edifice that perhaps had been grand in its day but was quickly succumbing to the blight of the area. She stepped onto the crumbling porch and pushed open the front door.
There was no doorman outside to question her. There was no butler inside to meet her. There was only a grimy foyer and a staircase up to the next floor. She noted a sitting room off the entryway where several sets of eyes turned lazily toward her, then opened wide at the sight. She made for the door of the sitting room, sparking even wider eyes.
She surveyed the parlor with its flickering lamps, drooping wallpaper, badly used furniture, and men just as badly used. They were typically old men in worn clothes that were a decade out of date. It might have been the Regency to this roomful of society detritus.
She announced, “I want Colonel Boylan Hibbert.”
The men lowered their newspapers and worked pipes in their wet mouths. The woman tired quickly of their confused stares so she regarded the man nearest her. He sat in a patched armchair next to the fireplace. He was dressed for dinner but wore slippers with the big toes worn through. His white hair was thinning and he clearly had neglected to shave for several days.
She asked him, “Do you know Colonel Hibbert? Where are his rooms?”
The old man twisted his head in thought or senility. He removed his pipe. “He resides in seven-B, which is up the stairs and third door along on the right. However,” he added when the woman started away, “he has a guest at the moment, I believe. I would be happy to go up and tell him you are calling.”
The woman glanced over her shoulder at the man with a disdainful smirk. When she turned back to the stairs, she heard him mutter, “Irregular. We must tighten the membership regulations.”
The woman climbed the creaking stairs. Voices rose in argument or passion. She heard laughter and crying. Tobacco smoke mixed with coal gas, and even a hint of opium. That last sweet smell grew stronger as she reached the door and pounded the wood with her fist.
The door swung back to reveal Colonel Hibbert in a tattered smoking jacket, a colorful dhoti, or Indian cloth, wrapped around his waist, and bare feet. A long-stemmed pipe was clenched in his teeth. His eyes were red-rimmed and half-closed.
The Valkyrie pushed past him into the room, followed by Hibbert’s drugged leer. The room was overwhelmingly grey, the floors, the walls, and the linens. One feeble lamp cast vibrating shadows. Hibbert closed the door slowly and leaned against it. He gave a smile that once might have been charming.
“Gretta.” Hibbert bowed clumsily. “Welcome to my home. I’ve just put on the kettle. Would you care for refreshments?”
She glanced around the wretched place and sniffed. “You’ve fallen far, Hibbert.”
The man snorted with amusement. “I find the finer clubs no longer welcome more worldly men. Anatomize a few worthless doxies in Calcutta and suddenly a gentleman is no longer in fashion.”
Gretta grunted with lack of interest in his personal plight. “Is she here?”
“She came when I whistled.” The colonel pointed to another door with the stem of his pipe and grinned lasciviously. “She is abed.”
“And have you done as instructed?”
“She has been given a dose of the elixir. And I believe I am owed something. Though I would have gladly done this service for free.” The man’s expectation flared through the opium haze